
Glass. 



Book.,. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



HIGH ADVENTURE 

A NARRATIVE OF AIR FIGHTING 
IN FRANCE 



3$ook6 bp James jBnrman f)all 

PUBLISHED BV 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



HIGH ADVENTURE. A Narrative of Air Fight- 
ing in France. Illustrated. 

KITCHENER'S MOB. The Adventures of an 
American in the British Army. With Frontis- 
piece. 



I.S^c 




CAPTAIN GUYNEMER, "THE ACE OF ACES 



High Adventure 

A Narrative of Air Fighting 
in France 

By 

James Norman Hall 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 




Boston and New York 
Houghton Mifflin Company 

(Cbc tf itiersifcc ^retfg Cambridge 
1918 



-} 



COPYRIGHT, 1917 AND I918, BY THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT, I918, BY JAMES NORMAN HALL 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



Published June iqi8 



/.So 



M 24 IS 18 
©GI.A497879 

it e \ 



Contents 

Introduction. By Major Edmund Gros . ix 

I. The Franco-American Corps i 

II. Penguins 24 

III. By the Route of the Air .... 47 

IV. At G. D. E 79 

V. Our First Patrol 107 

VI. A Balloon Attack 144 

VII. Brought Down 167 

VIII. One Hundred Hours 182 

IX. "Lonely as a Cloud" 200 

X. "Mais oui, mon vieux!" .... 209 

XI. The Camouflaged Cows .... 216 

XII. Cafard 226 



Illustrations 

Captain Guynemer, "The Ace of Aces" 

Frontispiece 

The Bleriot Monoplane Division . 10 

A French Aviation School 22 

Penguins 26 

Bringing Home the Bus 26 

YOU CAN DRIVE A "ZaNG" TO WATER, BUT YOU 

can't make it drink 34 

Passenger killed; Pilot badly injured . . 34 

American Student Pilots at a Bleriot School, 

December, 1916 48 

A Review at the Aerodrome .... 54 

Aerial Landing-Stages may be Practicable . 58 
American Student Pilots and some of their 
French Officers and Instructors at an 

ecole mllitaire deviation, april 2, i917 62 

The Author 68 

Airmen prefer a Treeless Country ... 82 

French Sopwith Two-Seater .... 88 

Caudron Three-Passenger Avion, Type R 4 . 88 

vii 



Illustrations 

An American Pilot's Investigation of a 

Camp Bakery 96 

The Nieuport Biplane of Lieutenant Nun- 

GESSER, THE FRENCH AcE ICO 

Spad Biplanes of Captain Guynemer's Esca- 
drille ioo 

The Valley of Desolation 108 

A Segment of Trench Line, showing No Man's 
Land 122 

Spad Two-Passenger Battle Plane . . .126 
Morane Parasol 126 

The Effect of Destructive Shell-Fire as 
seen from the alr: a vlllage before, dur- 
ing, and after a bombardment . . . .132 

The Maze of Traffic Routes in the Rear of 

the Trenches 136 

Farman Reconnaissance Avion .... 148 
Farman Biplanes armed with Rockets for 
Balloon Attack 148 

Whiskey and Soda, the Lion Cubs of the Es- 
cadrille Lafayette 156 

The Escadrille Lafayette in July, 191 7 . . 168 

Spad Single-S eater Combat Avion . . .172 

Letord Three-Passenger Biplane . . .172 

Handley-Page British Bombing Plane . .184 

Breguet Two-Passenger Bombing Plane . 184 

viii 



Illustrations 

German Albatross Single-Seater Fighting 
Plane, captured Intact 190 

German Two-Passenger Fighting Plane, cap- 
tured Intact 190 

Victors and Vanquished 204 

Motors for illuminating the Field of a 
Night Bombarding Squadron . . . .218 

A Hangar at the Aerodrome of the Esca- 
drille Lafayette after a Night Bombard- 
ment 218 

German Airmen's Grave at Ham . . .232 



Introduction 

When the history of America's participation 
in the Great War is written, the earliest chapter 
should be given to a record of the services of 
the American volunteers who came to France 
while our country was still neutral. Animated 
by the finest spirit of patriotism, believing with 
all their hearts in the justice of the Allied cause, 
many young men joined the armies of France 
and England, and among them those who have 
since become pilots in the Escadrille Lafayette 
and the Lafayette Flying Corps. I have been 
associated with this group of volunteer aviators 
from the very beginning. I have examined 
every candidate medically and morally. After 
their acceptance in the Corps I have kept their 
interests at heart, and my feeling toward them 
is almost a paternal one. Much has already 
been written of Chapman, Kiffen Rockwell, 
Prince, McConnell, McMonagle, Chadwick, 
Genet, Hoskier, Campbell, to speak only of a 
few of those who have met glorious deaths; and 

xi 



Introduction 

of those pilots, still living, still taking a splendid 
part in the aerial battles along the Western 
Front. To the example set by the American 
volunteers, perhaps more than to any other 
cause, was due the awakening of the national 
soul of America, the realization that this war 
is not a local conflict between European na- 
tions, but a world-struggle between the forces 
of Good and Evil. 

William Thaw, Kiffen Rockwell, and Victor 
Chapman joined the Foreign Legion at the be- 
ginning of the war. They were infantrymen 
before they became aviators in the French 
service. (So, too, were William Dugan, Robert 
Soubiran, and other men who were later to 
join the Franco-American Flying Corps.) Nor- 
man Prince had already flown in America. 

After some delay these four men were sent 
to the French aviation schools, soon joined by 
Cowdin, Bert Hall, Masson, and our future 
"ace," Raoul Lufbery. They were distributed 
in various French escadrilles. 

Thaw and Prince dreamed of a squadron of 
American pilots, which would be grouped to- 
gether at the front, but for some time this sug- 

xii 



Introduction 

gestion met with no favor on the part of the 
French military authorities. 

In the meantime the American pilots were 
being trained in the French schools. The idea 
came to several of us that this grouping of 
Americans at the front could and should be 
accomplished. 

M. de Sillac, whose position in the Ministry 
of Foreign Affairs peculiarly fitted him for ap- 
proaching the Minister of War, was taking ac- 
tive steps to bring this about, and at the same 
time, and quite independently of him, whilst 
I was helping in the organization of the Ameri- 
can Ambulance, I was dreaming of a squadrilla 
of American volunteers who would express 
their sympathy for France in a material form. 
I believed that these boys were to be but the 
vanguard of other great hosts that would come 
from America some day. 

In the spring of 191 5, Prince, M. de Sillac, 
and myself met at M. de Sillac's office, Thaw 
being heartily in accord with us, but obliged 
to remain on duty at the front. The plans 
of the future American squadrilla were then 
drawn up. 

xiii 



Introduction 

This grouping together of Americans at the 
front in a fighting unit, brought up a delicate 
question of international law, and in the face 
of America's jealous neutrality, the French 
Minister of War did not seem inclined to sanc- 
tion this proposition. 

It looked as though we should fail, when M. 
de Sillac arranged a luncheon at Senator Me- 
nier's home, to which were invited: General 
Hirschauer, then head of French aviation; Col- 
onel Bouttieux, his assistant; Leon Bourgeois, 
French Minister of State; our ex-Ambassador, 
Robert Bacon; Dr. William White, of Phila- 
delphia; and M. de Sillac, and myself. 

Robert Bacon and General Hirschauer dis- 
cussed the matter fully, and the conclusion was 
that there existed no international law which 
forbade Americans from enlisting individually 
in a foreign army — as long as the recruiting 
was not carried out in America. 

General Hirschauer promised to give orders 
immediately that the various American avia- 
tors then in the French army should be grouped 
together in an escadrille commanded by a 
French captain; it was to be called the "Esca- 

xiv 



Introduction 

drille Americaine " (officially Escadrille N. 124), 
a name which we shall see later led to a diplo- 
matic incident. 

Now that we had succeeded in forming a 
squadron, it was necessary to appoint a com- 
mittee and to obtain the necessary funds for 
monthly allowances, uniforms, distribution of 
prizes, printing of pamphlets, etc. 

The financial question was quickly solved. I 
called with Robert Bacon on Mr. and Mrs. 
W. K. Vanderbilt. We spoke with warmth of 
our plans. Our enthusiasm must have been con- 
tagious, for when I appealed for funds, Mrs. 
Vanderbilt walked to her desk and wrote out a 
check for five thousand dollars — and turning 
to her husband said: "Now, K., what will you 
do?" His check read, fifteen thousand dollars. 
With this sum in hand, it looked as though our 
dream was really coming true! 

From that day to this, these generous people 
have never ceased to be the patron saints of the 
American boys, and have contributed to avia- 
tion alone, modestly as is their custom, what 
would be considered a small fortune. 

The composition of the first Escadrille (Es- 
xv 



Introduction 

cadrille Americaine) was as follows — author- 
ity, letter of Minister of War, March 14, 
1916: — 

Captain Thenault ) F , 

Lieutenant de Laage de Meux J 
Lieutenant William Thaw 
Sergeant Norman Prince 
Elliott Cowdin 
" W.Bert Hall 
Corporal Victor Chapman 
KirTen Rockwell 
James McConnell 

Raoul Lufbery came very soon after this, 
followed by Charles C. Johnson and Clyde 
Balsley, who, for several weeks, were attached 
to the aerial guard of Paris. Balsley was very 
severely wounded in an air battle soon after 
joining the Squadron. By great presence of 
mind he succeeded in planing down to the 
French lines. He was in hospital for more than 
a year, during which time his life was frequently 
despaired of. Following the first volunteers 
came Dudley Hill, Masson, Pavelka, Robert 
Rockwell, and, as they completed their train- 

xvi 



Introduction 

ing, other Americans who have done splendid 
service for the Allied cause and who have added 
steadily to the prestige of the Corps. 

No sooner had this Squadron been sent to 
the front than it took a vigorous part in aerial 
activities, as the following report sets forth : — 

The American pilots who have enlisted in the 
French army are already distinguishing them- 
selves by a series of exploits. The first "Esca- 
drille" is composed of only seven Americans, and 
here are the results of the last seven days: — 

Sergeant Elliott Cowdin attacked twelve Ger- 
man planes and brought one down in our lines 
(Military Medal). 

Sergeant Kiffen Rockwell a few days later 
brought down a L.V.G. enemy plane. 

The next day Bert Hall used his machine gun 
on another airplane which fell in flames. 

Finally two days later, Lieutenant William 
Thaw destroyed a Fokker. 

It is not strange that the pilots of the Es- 
cadrille Americaine gained renown both in 
France and in America and were bitterly hated 
by the Germans. 

The following letter of Victor Chapman, 
written on May 19, 19 16, from Luxeuil, gives 
a vivid picture of the Squadron's activities : — 
xvii 



Introduction 

Dear M. de Sillac: — 

The efficiency of the Escadrille has been tem- 
porarily reduced by several breakages of the un- 
avoidable variety. Nevertheless, six of us are 
going to Bar-le-Duc to-morrow, where the unit will 
join us as soon as possible. On the 17th, two days 
ago, Thaw played a Boche in the most approved 
style over the Forest of Carspach. Dodging to 
the right, then to the left, he ended under the 
enemy's tail, where he emptied his machine gun. 
The bureau de tir at Souane telephoned and re- 
ported that all their observers saw the "appareil 
ennemi regagnant ses lignes en paraissant bien 
touche. II est pique a mort." 

Yesterday, May 18th, Kiffen Rockwell, finding 
himself above another L.V.G., east of Thann, fell 
upon him. The mitrailleur emptied a multitude 
of cartridges on Rockwell as he sped down, but 
when the latter, from a distance of thirty metres, 
gave one "rafale" [four or five shots], the mitrail- 
leur threw up his hands and fell over on the pilot 
who likewise seemed to crumple up. Rockwell 
made a steep bank to avoid hitting the machine, 
but saw it fall smoking to the ground, where it 
continued to burn. The artillery signaled the 
fight and say the machine fell in the German 
trenches, vicinity of Uffhulz. 

This morning, May 19th, two German ma- 
chines in revenge came over the field before sun- 
rise (3 o'clock and 3.30). I gave chase to the first, 
but lost him in the haze (I forgot to say one of his 

xviii 



Introduction 

bombs missed our machines on the ground by ten 
metres). Thaw gave chase to the second one, 
overtook him at thirty-two hundred metres near 
the lines, exchanged several volleys at close range, 
but, with no extra height to manoeuvre with, was 
forced to desist on account of his machine gun 
jamming. Rockwell and myself are proposed for 
sergeant, he being also proposed for the Medaille. 
Thaw is also to be cited when the reports come in. 
Yours sincerely, 

Victor E. Chapman. 

In the meanwhile a committee was appointed 
to handle the affairs of the Franco-American 
Flying Corps, which later became known as the 
Lafayette Flying Corps. 

This committee was composed as follows : — 

Honorary President, W. K. Vanderbilt. 

President, J. de Sillac. 

Vice-President, Physician, Dr. Edmund Gros. 

Director for America, Frederick Allen. 

American representatives, Henry Earle, Geo. 
F. Tyler, Philip Carroll, Frank J. McClure. 

Treasurers, Laurence Slade, Colonel Bently 
Mott. 

Assistant treasurer, Arthur G. Evans. 

Bankers, Bonbright & Co. 

Secretary, Mrs. Georgia Ovington. 
xix 



Introduction 

It was decided to give a monthly allowance 
of one hundred francs, later increased to two 
hundred francs, to each American volunteer. 

Prizes were distributed as follows : — 

Francs 1500 (#300) for Legion of Honor 
" 1000 ($200) for Military Medal 
500 ($100) for War Cross 
200 ($ 50) for each citation (palm) 

This last item became a very important 
financial obligation which we were glad to meet. 

For instance, the members of the Escadrille 
Lafayette alone have received over forty cita- 
tions. Lufbery has brought down seventeen 
German machines — he ranks sixth in the list 
of living "aces" in the French army, and wears 
the Legion of Honor, Military Medal, the War 
Cross with sixteen palm leaves, and the English 
Military Cross. 

Thaw has the Legion of Honor, Military 
Medal, and War Cross with four palms, etc. 

The greatest honor which can come to an in- 
dividual or to a fighting unit is to be mentioned 
in the French daily official communique. The 
Escadrille Americaine has been mentioned sev- 

xx 



Introduction 

eral times, this leading early to a diplomatic 
incident which I learned of as follows : — 

On November 16, 1916, I was paying a visit 
to the Escadrille when Colonel Barres, chief 
of French aviation, at General Headquarters, 
walked into the tent. He said that he was sorry, 
but in the future the Escadrille could no longer 
be known as the Escadrille Americaine, but 
should henceforth be designated by its official 
military number, N. 124. 

He seemed reticent to give me an explana- 
tion, but I got this the next day at the Ministry 
of War. I learned that Bernstorff had protested 
to Washington that Americans were fighting on 
the French front — that the French commu- 
nique contained the name, "Escadrille Ame- 
ricaine," and that these volunteer Americans 
pushed their brazenness to the point of having 
the head of a red Sioux Indian in full war paint 
depicted on their machines ! 

A few days afterwards I called at the Minis- 
try of War and saw Captain Berthaud, who had 
always been a loyal friend to Americans. He 
told me that the name which they thought 
of applying to the Escadrille was "Escadrille 

xxi 



Introduction 

de Volontaires." "Squadron of Volunteers " 
seemed to me such a colorless name that I pro- 
tested, suggesting a name which could not lead 
to any diplomatic protest, "Lafayette Esca- 
drille." Such is the origin of the title which 
has become celebrated, and which will be per- 
petuated through the war by being applied to 
the first American Squadron of our United 
States Air Service. 

Attracted by the fame of the Lafayette Esca- 
drille even before the United States entered the 
war, more than two hundred American volun- 
teers have joined the Lafayette Flying Corps. 
Some have become pilots in the Lafayette Es- 
cadrille, to take the place of those who have 
fallen, others have served and are serving with 
equal brilliancy in various French squadrillas. 

Over twenty have lost their lives, the major- 
ity having fallen in combat. 

The names of Chapman, Rockwell, Prince, 
McConnell, Genet, Hoskier, Barclay, Chad- 
wick, Biddle, McMonagle, Campbell, Walcott, 
Trinkard, Spencer, Benney, Tailer, Loughran, 
who died at the front, and of Dowd, Meeker, 
Hanford, Fowler, Starrett, Palmer, Grieb, who 

xxii 



Introduction 

were killed before they could fight, will not be 
forgotten. 

Walcott, Spencer, Benney, Tailer and Lough- 
ran were on the point of being taken over by the 
Air Service of their country when they died, 
and were still in the uniform of France which 
they honored and glorified. 

This brief outline is, in no sense, a history of 
the Lafayette Squadrilla and Lafayette Flying 
Corps. Much could be written of the wonderful 
exploits of these heroic pilots. They have paid 
a heavy toll, and many of them lie within the 
sound of the guns, side by side with the French 
soldiers whom they loved, and with whom they 
served. 

They are not dead, their spirits still live, 
inviting us to higher ideals, nobler aspirations, 
and unwavering patriotism. 

Major Edmund Gros 

Air Service, A.E.F. 

Paris, February 3, 191 8 



HIGH ADVENTURE 



THE FRANCO-AMERICAN CORPS 

It was on a cool, starlit evening, early in Sep- 
tember, 1916, that I first met Drew of Massa- 
chusetts, and actually began my adventures as 
a prospective member of the Escadrille Ameri- 
caine. We had sailed from New York by the 
same boat, had made our applications for en- 
listment in the Foreign Legion on the same 
day, without being aware of each other's exist- 
ence; and in Paris, while waiting for our papers, 
we had gone, every evening, for dinner, to the 
same large and gloomy-looking restaurant in 
the neighborhood of the Seine. 

As for the restaurant, we frequented it, not 
assuredly because of the quality of the food. 
We might have dined better and more cheaply 
elsewhere. But there was an air of vanished 
splendor, of faded magnificence, about the 
place which, in the capital of a warring nation, 

1 



High Adventure 

appealed to both of us. Every evening the 
tables were laid with spotless linen and shining 
silver. The wineglasses caught the light from 
the tarnished chandeliers in little points of 
color. At the dinner-hour, a half-dozen ancient 
serving-men silently took their places about the 
room. There was not a sound to be heard ex- 
cept the occasional far-off honk of a motor or 
the subdued clatter of dishes from the kitchens. 
The serving-men, even the tables and the 
empty chairs, seemed to be listening, to be 
waiting for the guests who never came. Rarely 
were there more than a dozen diners-out dur- 
ing the course of an evening. There was some- 
thing mysterious in these elaborate prepara- 
tions, and something rather fine about them as 
well; but one thought, not without a touch of 
sadness, of the old days when there had been 
laughter and lights and music, sparkling wines 
and brilliant talk, and how those merrymakers 
had gone, many of them, long ago to the wars. 
As it happened on this evening, Drew and 
I were sitting at adjoining tables. Our common 
citizenship was our introduction, and after five 
minutes of talk, we learned of our common 

2 



The Franco-American Corps 

purpose in coming to France. I suppose that 
we must have eaten after making this latter 
discovery. I vaguely remember seeing our old 
waiter hobbling down a long vista of empty 
tables on his way to and from the kitchens. 
But if we thought of our food at all, it must 
have been in a purely mechanical way. 

Drew can talk — by Jove, how the man can 
talk ! — and he has the faculty of throwing the 
glamour of romance over the most common- 
place adventures. Indeed, the difficulty which 
I am going to have in writing this narrative is 
largely due to this romantic influence of his. I 
might have succeeded in writing a plain tale, 
for I have kept my diary faithfully, from day 
to day, and can set down our adventures, such 
as they are, pretty much as they occurred. But 
Drew has bewitched me. He does not realize 
it, but he is a weaver of spells, and I am so en- 
meshed in his moonshine that I doubt if I shall 
be able to write of our experiences as they must 
appear to those of our comrades in the Franco- 
American Corps who remember them only 
through the medium of the revealing light of 
day. 

3 



High Adventure 

Not one of these men, I am sure, would con- 
fess to so strange an immediate cause for join- 
ing the aviation service, as that related to me by 
Drew, as we sat over our coffee and cigarettes, 
on the evening of our first meeting. He had 
come to France, he said, with the intention of 
joining the Legion Etrangere as an infantryman. 
But he changed his mind, a few days after his 
arrival in Paris, upon meeting Jackson of the 
American Aviation Squadron, who was on 
leave after a service of six months at the front. 
It was all because of the manner in which Jack- 
son looked at a Turkish rug. He told him of his 
adventures in the most matter-of-fact way. No 
heroics, nothing of that sort. He had not a 
glimmer of imagination, he said. But he had a 
way of looking at the floor which was " irresist- 
ible," which " fascinated him with the sense of 
height." He saw towns, villages, networks of 
trenches, columns of toy troops moving up rib- 
bons of road — all in the patterns of a Turkish 
rug. And the next day, he was at the head- 
quarters of the Franco-American Corps, in the 
Champs Elysees, making application for mem- 
bership. 

4 



The Franco-American Corps 

It is strange that we should both have come 
to France with so little of accurate knowledge of 
the corps, of the possibilities for enlistment, and 
of the nature of the requirements for the serv- 
ice. Our knowledge of it, up to the time of sail- 
ing, had been confined to a few brief references 
in the press. It was perhaps necessary that its 
existence should not be officially recognized in 
America, or its furtherance encouraged. But 
it seemed to us at that time, that there must 
have been actual discouragement on the part of 
the Government at Washington. However that 
may be, we wondered if others had followed 
clues so vague or a call so dimly heard. 

This led to a discussion of our individual ap- 
titudes for the service, and we made many com- 
forting discoveries about each other. It is per- 
missible to reveal them now, for the particular 
encouragement of others who, like ourselves at 
that time, may be conscious of deficiencies, 
and who may think that they have none of 
the qualities essential to the successful aviator. 
Drew had never been farther from the ground 
than the top of the Woolworth building. I had 
once taken a trip in a captive balloon. Drew 

5 



High Adventure 

knew nothing of motors, and had no more 
knowledge of mechanics than would enable him 
to wind a watch without breaking the main- 
spring. My ignorance in this respect was a fair 
match for his. 

We were further handicapped for the French 
service by our lack of the language. Indeed, 
this seemed to be the most serious obstacle in 
the way to success. With a good general knowl- 
edge of the language it seemed probable that 
we might be able to overcome our other defi- 
ciencies. Without it, we could see no way to 
mastering the mechanical knowledge which we 
supposed must be required as a foundation for 
the training of a military pilot. In this connec- 
tion, it may be well to say that we have both 
been handicapped from the beginning. We have 
had to learn, through actual experience in the 
air, and at risk to life and limb, what many 
of our comrades, both French and American, 
knew before they had ever climbed into an aero- 
plane. But it is equally true that scores of men 
become very excellent pilots with little or no 
knowledge of the mechanics of the business. 

In so far as Drew and I were concerned, these 



The Franco-American Corps 

were matters for the future. It was enough for 
us at the moment that our applications had 
been approved, our papers signed, and that 
to-morrow we were leaving for the Ecole cT Avia- 
tion Militaire to begin our training. And so, 
after a long evening of pleasant talk and pleas- 
anter anticipation of coming events, we left 
our restaurant and walked together through 
the silent streets to the Place de la Concorde. 
The great windy square was almost deserted. 
The monuments to the lost provinces bulked 
large in the dim lamplight. Two disabled sol- 
diers hobbled across the bridge and disap- 
peared in the deep shade of the avenue. Their 
service had been rendered, their sacrifices 
made, months ago. They could look about 
them now with a peculiar sense of isolation, and 
with, perhaps, a feeling of the futility of the 
effort they had made. Our adventures were 
all before us. Our hearts were light and our 
hopes high. As we stood by the obelisk, talk- 
ing over plans for the morrow, we heard, high 
overhead, the faint hum of motors, and saw two 
lights, one green, one red, moving rapidly across 
the sky. A moment later the long, slender fin- 

7 



High Adventure 

ger of a searchlight probed among little heaps 
of cloud, then, sweeping in a wide arc, revealed 
in striking outline the shape of a huge biplane 
circling over the sleeping city. It was one of the 
night guard of Paris. 

On the following morning, we were at the 
Gare des Invalides with our luggage, a long 
half-hour before train-time. The luggage was 
absurdly bulky. Drew had two enormous suit- 
cases and a bag, and I a steamer trunk and a 
family-size portmanteau. We looked so much 
the typical American tourists that we felt 
ashamed of ourselves, not because of our na- 
tionality, but because we revealed so plainly, 
to all the world military, our non-military ante- 
cedents. We bore the hallmark of fifty years 
of neutral aloofness, of fifty years of indiffer- 
ence to the business of national defense. What 
makes the situation amusing as a retrospect is 
the fact that we were traveling on third-class 
military passes, as befitted our rank as eleve- 
pilotes and soldiers of the deuxieme classe. 

To our great discomfiture, a couple of poilus 
volunteered their services in putting our be- 
longings aboard the train. Then we crowded 

8 



The Franco-American Corps 

into a third-class carriage filled with soldiers — 
permissionnaires, blesses, reformes, men from all 
corners of France and her colonies. Their uni- 
forms were faded and weather-stained with 
long service. The stocks of their rifles were 
worn smooth and bright with constant usage, 
and their packs fairly stowed themselves upon 
their backs. 

Drew and I felt uncomfortable in our smart 
civilian clothing. We looked too soft, too clean, 
too spick-and-span. We did not feel that we 
belonged there. But in a whispered conversa- 
tion we comforted ourselves with the assurance 
that if ever America took her rightful stand 
with the Allies, in six months after the event, 
hundreds of thousands of American boys 
would be lugging packs and rifles with the same 
familiarity of use as these French poilus. They 
would become equally good soldiers, and soon 
would have the same community of experi- 
ence, of dangers and hardships shared in com- 
mon, which make men comrades and brothers 
in fact as well as in theory. 

By the time we had reached our destination 
we had persuaded ourselves into a much more 

9 



High Adventure 

comfortable frame of mind. There we piled 
into a cab, and soon we were rattling over the 
cobblestones, down a long, sunlit avenue in the 
direction of B . It was late of a mild after- 
noon when we reached the summit of a high 
plateau and saw before us the barracks and 
hangars of the Ecole (T Aviation. There was not 
a breath of air stirring. The sun was just sink- 
ing behind a bank of crimson cloud. The earth 
was already in shadow, but high overhead the 
light was caught and reflected from the wings 
of scores of avions which shone like polished 
bronze and silver. We saw the long lines of 
Bleriot monoplanes, like huge dragon-flies, and 
as pretty a sight in the air as heart could wish. 
Farther to the left, we recognized Farman bi- 
planes, floating battleships in comparison with 
the Bleriots, and twin-motor Caudrons, much 
more graceful and alert of movement. 

But, most wonderful of all to us then, we 
saw a strange, new avion, — a biplane, small, 
trim, with a body like a fish. To see it in flight 
was to be convinced for all time that man has 
mastered the air, and has outdone the birds in 
their own element. Never was swallow more 

10 



The Franco-American Corps 

consciously joyous in swift flight, never eagle 
so bold to take the heights or so quick to reach 
them. Drew and I gazed in silent wonder, 
our bodies jammed tightly into the cab-win- 
dow, and our heads craned upward. We did 
not come back to earth until our ancient, 
earth-creeping conveyance brought up with a 
jerk, and we found ourselves in front of a gate 
marked " Ecole d'Aviation Militaire de B — — ." 
After we had paid the cabman, we stood in 
the road, with our mountain of luggage heaped 
about us, waiting for something to happen. A 
moment later a window in the administration 
building was thrown open and we were greeted 
with a loud and not over-musical chorus of 

" Oh, say, can you see by the dawn's early light — " 

It all came from one throat, belonging to a 
chap in leathers, who came down the drive to 
give us welcome. 

" Spotted you toute suite" he said. " You can 
tell Americans at six hundred yards by their 
hats. How's things in the States? Do you think 
we're coming in?" 

We gave him the latest budget of home 
ii 



High Adventure 

news, whereupon he offered to take us over to 
the barracks. When he saw our luggage he 
grinned. 

" Some equipment, believe me ! Attendez un 
peu while I commandeer a battalion of An- 
namites to help us carry it, and we'll be on our 
way." 

The Annamites, from Indo-China, who are 
quartered at the camp for guard and fatigue 
duty, came back with him about twenty strong, 
and we started in a long procession to the bar- 
racks. Later, we took a vindictive pleasure 
in witnessing the beluggaged arrival of other 
Americans, for in nine cases out of ten they 
came as absurdly over-equipped as did we. 

Our barracks, one of many built on the same 
pattern, was a long, low wooden building, 
weather-stained without and whitewashed 
within. It had accommodation for about forty 
beds. One end of the room was very manifestly 
American. There was a phonograph on the 
table, baseball equipment piled in one corner, 
and the walls were covered with cartoons and 
pictures clipped from American periodicals. 
The other end was as evidently French, in the 

12 



The Franco-American Corps 

frugality and the neatness of its furnishings. 
The American end of the room looked more 
homelike, but the French end more military. 
Near the center, where the two nations joined, 
there was a very harmonious blending of these 
characteristics. 

Drew and I were delighted with all this. We 
were glad that we were not to live in an ex- 
clusively American barracks, for we wanted to 
learn French ; but more than this, we wanted to 
live with Frenchmen on terms of barrack-room 
familiarity. 

By the time we had given in our papers at the 
captain's office and had passed the hasty pre- 
liminary examination of the medical officer, it 
was quite dark. Flying for the day was over, 
and lights gleamed cheerily from the barrack- 
room windows. As we came down the princi- 
pal street of the camp, we heard the strains of 
"Waiting for the Robert E. Lee," to a gramo- 
phone accompaniment, issuing from the cham- 
bre des Americains. 

" See them shuffle along, 
Oh, ma honey babe, 
Hear that music and song." 

13 



High Adventure 

It gave us the home feeling at once. French- 
men and Americans were singing together, the 
Frenchmen in very quaint English, but hitting 
off the syncopated time as though they had 
been born and brought up to it as we Ameri- 
cans have. 

Over in one corner, a very informal class 
in French-English pronunciation was at work. 
Apparently, this was tongue-twisters' night. 
"Heureux" was the challenge from the French 
side, and "Hooroo" the nearest approach to a 
pronunciation on the part of the Americans, 
with many more or less remote variations on 
this theme. An American, realizing how dif- 
ficult it is for a Frenchman to get his tongue 
between his teeth, counter-challenged with 
"Father, you are withered with age." The re- 
sult, as might have been expected, was a series 
of hissing sounds of z, whereupon there was an 
answering howl of derision from all the Ameri- 
cans. Up and down the length of the room 
there were little groups of two and three, chat- 
ting together in combinations of Franco-Amer- 
ican which must have caused all deceased pro- 
fessors of modern languages to spin like midges 

14 



The Franco-American Corps 

in their graves. And throughout all this be- 
fore-supper merriment, one could catch the feel- 
ing of good-comradeship which, so far as my 
experience goes, is always prevalent whenever 
Frenchmen and Americans are gathered to- 
gether. 

At the ordinaire, at supper-time, we saw all 
of the eleve-pilotes of the school, with the ex- 
ception of the non-commissioned officers, who 
have their own mess. To Drew and me, but 
newly come from remote America, it was a 
most interesting gathering. There were about 
one hundred and twenty-five in all, including 
eighteen Americans. The large majority of the 
Frenchmen had already been at the front in 
other branches of army service. There were 
artillerymen, infantrymen, marines, — in train- 
ing for the naval air-service, — cavalrymen, all 
wearing the uniforms of the arm to which they 
originally belonged. No one was dressed in a 
uniform which distinguished him as an aviator; 
and upon making inquiry, I found that there 
is no official dress for this branch of the serv- 
ice. During his period of training in aviation, 
and even after receiving his military brevet, a 

15 



High Adventure 

pilot continues to wear the dress of his former 
service, plus the wings on the collar, and the 
star-and-wings insignia on his right breast. 
This custom does not make for the fine uniform 
appearance of the men of the British Royal 
Flying Corps, but it gives a picturesqueness 
of effect which is, perhaps, ample recompense. 
As for the Americans, they follow individual 
tastes, as we learned later. Some of them, with 
an eye to color, salute the sun in the red trousers 
and black tunic of the artilleryman. Others 
choose more sober shades, various French blues, 
with the thin orange aviation stripe running 
down the seams of the trousers. All this in 
reference to the dress uniform. At the camp 
most of the men wear leathers, or a combina- 
tion of leathers and the gray-blue uniform of 
the French poilu, which is issued to all Ameri- 
cans at the time of their enlistment. 

We had a very excellent supper of soup, fol- 
lowed by a savory roast of meat, with mashed 
potatoes and lentils. Afterward, cheese and 
beer. I was slightly discomfited physically on 
learning that the beef was horse-meat, but 
Drew convinced me that it was absurd to let 

16 



The Franco-American Corps 

old scruples militate against a healthy appetite. 
In 1870 the citizens of France ate ragout de chat 
with relish. Furthermore, the roast was of so 
delicious a flavor and so closely resembled the 
finest cuts of beef, that it was easy to persuade 
one's self that it was beef, after all. 

After the meal, to our great surprise, every 
one cleaned his dishes with huge pieces of 
bread. Such waste seemed criminal in a coun- 
try beleaguered by submarines, in its third 
year of war, and largely dependent for its food- 
supply on the farm labor of women and chil- 
dren. We should not have been surprised if it 
had been only the Americans who indulged in 
this wasteful dish-cleansing process; but the 
Frenchmen did it, too. When I remarked upon 
this to one of my American comrades, a French- 
man, sitting opposite, said : — 

" Pardon, monsieur, but I must tell you what 
we Frenchmen are. We are very economical 
when it is for ourselves, for our own families 
and purses, that we are saving. But when it is 
the Government which pays the bill, we do not 
care. We do not have to pay directly and so 
we waste, we throw away. We are so careful at 

17 



High Adventure 



home, all of our lives, that this is a little pleas- 
ure for us." 

I have had this same observation made to me 
by so many Frenchmen since that time, that 
I believe there must be a good deal of truth 
in it. 

After supper, all of the Americans adjourned 
for coffee to Ciret's, a little cafe in the village 
which nestles among the hills not far from the 
camp. The cafe itself was like any one of thou- 
sands of French provincial restaurants. There 
was a great dingy common room, with a sanded 
brick floor, and faded streamers of tricolor 
paper festooned in curious patterns from the 
smoky ceiling. The kitchen was clean, and 
filled with the appetizing odor of good cooking. 
Beyond it was another, inner room, "toujours 
reservee a mes Americains" as M. Ciret, the 
fat, genial patron continually asserted. Here we 
gathered around a large circular table, pipes 
and cigarette's were lighted, and, while the 
others talked, Drew and I listened and gath- 
ered impressions. 

For a time the conversation did not become 
general, and we gathered up odds and ends of 

18 



The Franco-American Corps 

it from all sides. Then it turned to the reasons 
which had prompted various members of the 
group to come to France, the topic, above all 
others, which Drew and I most wanted to hear 
discussed. It seemed to me, as I listened, that 
we Americans closely resemble the British in 
our sensitive fear of any display of fine personal 
feeling. We will never learn to examine our 
emotions with anything but suspicion. If we 
are prompted to a course of action by generous 
impulses, we are anxious that others shall not 
be let into the secret. And so it was that of all 
the reasons given for offering their services to 
France, the first and most important was the 
last to be acknowledged, and even then it was 
admitted by some with a reluctance nearly 
akin to shame. There was no man there who 
was not ready and willing to give his life, if 
necessary, for the Allied cause, because he be- 
lieved in it; but the admission could hardly 
have been dragged from him by wild horses. 

But the adventure of the life, the peculiar 
fascination of it — that was a thing which 
might be discussed without reserve, and the 
men talked of it with a willingness which was 

19 



High Adventure 

most gratifying to Drew and me, curious as we 
were about the life we were entering. They were 
all in the flush of their first enthusiasms. They 
were daily enlarging their conceptions of dis- 
tance and height and speed. They talked a new 
language and were developing a new cast of 
mind. They were like children who had grown 
up over night, whose horizons had been immeas- 
urably broadened in the twinkling of an eye. 
They were still keenly conscious of the change 
which was upon them, for they were but fledg- 
ling aviators. They were just finding their 
wings. But as I listened, I thought of the time 
which must come soon, when the air, as the sea, 
will be filled with stately ships, and how the 
air-service will develop its own peculiar type of 
men, and build up about them its own laws and 
its own traditions. 

As we walked back through the straggling 
village street to the camp, I tried to convey to 
Drew something of the new vision which had 
come to me during the evening. I was aglow 
with enthusiasm and hoped to strike an answer- 
ing spark from him. But all that I was thinking 
and feeling then he had thought and felt long 

20 



The Franco-American Corps 

before. I am sure that he had already experi- 
enced, in imagination, every thrill, every keen 
joy, and every sudden sickening fear which the 
life might have in store for him. For this rea- 
son I forgave him for his rather bored manner 
of answering to my mood, and the more will- 
ingly because he was full of talk about a strange 
illusion which he had had at the restaurant. 
During a moment of silence, he had heard a 
clatter of hoof-beats in the' village street. (I 
had heard them too. Some one rode by furi- 
ously.) Well, Drew said that he almost jumped 
from his seat, expecting M. Ciret to throw open 
the door and shout, "The British are coming!" 
He actually believed for a second or two that 
it was the year 1775, and that he was sitting in 
one of the old roadside inns of Massachusetts. 
The illusion was perfect, he said. 

Now, why — etc., etc. At another time I 
should have been much interested; but in the 
presence of new and splendid realities I could 
not summon any enthusiasm for illusions. 
Nevertheless, I should have had to listen to him 
indefinitely, had it not been for an event which 
cut short all conversation and ended our first 

21 



High Adventure 

day at the Ecole d J Aviation in a truly spectac- 
ular manner. 

Suddenly we heard the roar of motors just 
over the barracks, and, at the same time, the 
siren sounded the alarm in a series of prolonged, 
wailing shrieks. Some belated pilot was still 
in the air. We rushed out to the field just as 
the flares were being lighted and placed on the 
ground in the shape of an immense T, with 
the cross-bar facing in the direction from which 
the wind was coming. By this time the hum 
of motors was heard at a great distance, but 
gradually it increased in volume and soon the 
light of the flares revealed the machine circling 
rapidly over the piste. I was so much absorbed 
in watching it manoeuvre for a landing that I 
did not see the crowd scattering to safe dis- 
tances. I heard many voices shouting frantic 
warnings, and so ran for it, but, in my excite- 
ment, directly within the line of descent of the 
machine. I heard the wind screaming through 
the wires, a terrifying sound to the novice, and 
glancing hurriedly over my shoulder, I saw 
what appeared to be a monster of gigantic pro- 
portions, almost upon me. It passed within 

22 



The Franco-American Corps 

three metres of my head and landed just be- 
yond. 

When at last I got to sleep, after a day filled 
with interesting incidents, Paul Revere pur- 
sued me relentlessly through the mazes of a 
weird and horrible dream. I was on foot, and 
shod with lead-soled boots. He was in a huge, 
twin-motor Caudron and flying at a terrific 
pace, only a few metres from the ground. I can 
see him now, as he leaned far out over the hood 
of his machine, an aviator's helmet set atilt over 
his powdered wig, and his eyes glowing like 
coals through his goggles. He was waving two 
lighted torches and shouting, "The British are 
coming! The British « re coming!" in a voice 
strangely like Drew's. 



II 

PENGUINS 

Having simple civilian notions as to the 
amount of time necessary for dressing, Drew 
and I rose with the sound of the bugle on the 
following morning. We had promised each 
other that we would begin our new life in true 
soldier style, and so we reluctantly hurried to 
the wash-house, where we shaved in cold water, 
washed after a fashion, and then hurried back 
to the unheated barrack-room. We felt re- 
freshed, morally and physically, but our heroic 
example seemed to make no impression upon 
our fellow aviators, whether French or Ameri- 
can. Indeed, not one of them stirred until ten 
minutes before time for the morning appel, 
when there was a sudden upheaval of blankets 
down the entire length of the room. It was as 
though the patients in a hospital ward had been 
inoculated with some wonderful, instantaneous- 
health-giving virus. Men were jumping into 
boots and trousers at the same time, and run- 
ning to and from the wash-house, buttoning 

24 



Penguins 

their shirts and drying their faces as they ran. 
It must have taken months of experiment to 
perfect the system whereby every one remained 
in bed until the last possible moment. They 
professed to be very proud of it, but it was 
clear that they felt more at ease when Drew 
and I, after a week of heroic, early-morning 
resolves, abandoned our daily test of courage. 
We are all Doctor Johnsons at heart. 

It was a crisp, calm morning — an excellent 
day for flying. Already the mechanicians were 
bringing out the machines and lining them up 
in front of the hangars, in preparation for the 
morning work, which began immediately after 
appel. Drew and I had received notice that we 
were to begin our training at once. Solicitous 
fellow countrymen had warned us to take with 
us all our flying clothes. We were by no means 
to forget our goggles, and the fur-lined boots 
which are worn over ordinary boots as a protec- 
tion against the cold. Innocently, we obeyed 
all instructions to the letter. The absurdity of 
our appearance will be appreciated only by air- 
men. Novices begin their training, at a Bleriot 
monoplane school, in Penguins — low-powered 

25 



High Adventure 

machines with clipped wings, which are not 
capable of leaving the ground. We were dressed 
as we would have no occasion to be dressed until 
we should be making sustained flights at high 
altitudes. Every one, Frenchmen and Ameri- 
cans alike, had a good laugh at our expense, but 
it was one in which we joined right willingly; 
and one kind-hearted adjudant-moniteur, in or- 
der to remove what discomfiture we may have 
felt, told us, through an interpreter, that he was 
sure we would become good air-men. The ires 
bon pilote could be distinguished, in embryo, 
by the way he wore his goggles. 

The beginners' class did not start work with 
the others, owing to the fact that the Penguins, 
driven by unaccustomed hands, covered a vast 
amount of ground in their rolling sorties back 
and forth across the field. Therefore Drew and 
I had leisure to watch the others, and to see 
in operation the entire scheme by means of 
which France trains her combat pilots for the 
front. Exclusive of the Penguin, there were 
seven classes, graded according to their degree 
of advancement. These, in their order, were 
the rolling class (a second-stage Penguin class, 

26 




PENGUINS 




BRINGING HOME THE BUS 



Penguins 

in which one still kept on the ground, but in 
machines of higher speed) ; the first flying class 
— short hops across the field at an altitude of 
two or three metres; the second flying class, 
where one learned to mount to from thirty to 
fifty metres, and to make landings without the 
use of the motor; tour de piste (a) — flights 
about the aerodrome in a forty-five horse-power 
Bleriot; tour de piste (b) — similar flights in a 
fifty horse-power machine; the spiral class, and 
the brevet class. 

Our reception committee of the day before 
volunteered his services as guide, and took us 
from one class to another, making comments 
upon the nature of the work of each in a be- 
wildering combination of English and Ameri- 
canized French. I understood but little of his 
explanation, although later I was able to appre- 
ciate his French translation of some of our 
breezy Americanisms. But explanation was, 
for the most part, unnecessary. We could see 
for ourselves how the prospective pilot ad- 
vanced from one class to another, becoming 
accustomed to machines of higher and higher 
power, "growing his wings" very gradually, 

27 



High Adventure 

until at last he reached the spiral class, where 
he learned to make landings at a given spot 
and without the use of his motor, from an al- 
titude of from eight hundred to one thousand 
metres, losing height in volplanes and serpen- 
tines. The final tests for the military brevet 
were two cross-country flights of from two hun- 
dred to three hundred kilometres, with land- 
ings during each flight, at three points, two 
short voyages of sixty kilometres each, and an 
hour flight at a minimum altitude of two thou- 
sand metres. 

With all the activities of the school taking 
place at once, we were as excited as two boys 
seeing their first three-ring circus. We scarcely 
knew which way to turn in our anxiety to miss 
nothing. But my chief concern, in anticipa- 
tion, had been this : how were English-speaking 
eleves-pilotes to overcome the linguistic handi- 
cap ? My uneasiness was set at rest on this first 
morning, when I saw how neatly most of the 
difficulties were overcome. Many of the Ameri- 
cans had no knowledge of French other than 
that which they had acquired since entering 
the French service, and this, as I have already 

28 



Penguins 

hinted, had no great utilitarian value. An in- 
terpreter had been provided for them through 
the generosity and kindness of the Franco- 
American Committee in Paris; but it was im- 
possible for him to be everywhere at once, and 
much was left to their own quickness of under- 
standing and to the ingenuity of the moniteurs. 
The latter, being French, were eloquent with 
their gestures. With the additional aid of a 
few English phrases which they had acquired 
from the Americans, and the simplest kind of 
French, they had little difficulty in making 
their instructions clear. Both of us felt much 
encouraged as we listened, for we could under- 
stand them very well. 

As for the business of flying, as we watched 
it from below, it seemed the safest and sim- 
plest thing in the world. The machines left the 
ground so easily, and mounted and descended 
with such sureness of movement, that I was im- 
patient to begin my training. I believed that 
I could fly at once, after a few minutes of 
preliminary instruction, without first going 
through with all the tedious rolling along the 
ground in low-powered machines. But before 

29 



High Adventure 



the morning's work was finished, I revised my 
opinion. Accidents began to happen, the first 
one when one of the "old family cuckoos," as 
the rolling machines were disdainfully called, 
showed a sudden burst of old-time speed and 
left the ground in an alarming manner. 

It was evident that the man who was driv- 
ing it, taken completely by surprise, had lost 
his head, and was working the controls errat- 
ically. First he swooped upward, then dived, 
tipping dangerously on one wing. In this sud- 
den emergency he had quite forgotten his newly 
acquired knowledge. I wondered what I would 
do in such a strait, when one must think with 
the quickness and sureness of instinct. My 
heart was in my mouth, for I felt certain that 
the man would be killed. As for the others who 
were watching, no one appeared to be excited. 
A moniteur near me said, "Oh, la la! II est 
perdu!" in a mild voice. The whole affair hap- 
pened so quickly that I was not able to think 
myself into a similar situation before the end 
had come. At the last, the machine made a 
quick swoop downward, from a height of about 
fifty metres, then careened upward, tipped 

30 



Penguins 

again, and diving sidewise, struck the ground 
with a sickening rending crash, the motor go- 
ing at full speed. For a moment it stood, tail 
in air; then slowly the balance was lost, and it 
fell, bottom up, and lay silent. 

An enterprising moving-picture company 
would have given a great deal of money to film 
that accident. It would have provided a splen- 
did dramatic climax to a war drama of high 
adventure. Civilian audiences would have 
watched in breathless, awe-struck silence; but 
at a military school of aviation it was a dif- 
ferent matter. "Oh, la la! II est perdu!" ade- 
quately gauges the degree of emotional interest 
taken in the incident. At the time I was sur- 
prised at this apparent callousness, but I un- 
derstood it better when I had seen scores of 
such accidents occur, and had watched the pi- 
lots, as in this case, crawl out from the wreck- 
age, and walk sheepishly, and a little shaken, 
back to their classes. Although the machines 
were usually badly wrecked, the pilots were 
rarely severely hurt. The landing chassis of a 
Bleriot is so strong that it will break the force 
of a very heavy fall, and the motor, being in 

3i 



High Adventure 

front, strikes the ground first instead of pin- 
ning the pilot beneath it. 

To anticipate a little, in more than four 
months of training at the Bleriot school there 
was not a single fatality, although as many as 
eleven machines were wrecked in the course 
of one working day, and rarely less than two 
or three. There were so many accidents as to 
convince me that Bleriot training for novices 
is a mistake from the economic point of view. 
The up-keep expense is vastly greater than in 
double-command biplane schools, where the 
student pilot not only learns to fly in a much 
more stable machine, but makes all his early 
flights in company with a moniteur who has 
his own set of controls and may immediately 
correct any mistakes in handling. But France 
is not guided by questions of expense in her 
training of pilotes de chasse, and opinion ap- 
pears to be that single-command monoplane 
training is to be preferred for the airman who 
is to be a combat pilot. Certain it is that men 
have greater confidence in themselves when 
they learn to fly alone from the beginning; and 
the Bleriot, which requires the most delicate 

32 



Penguins 

and sensitive handling, offers excellent prelimi- 
nary schooling for the Nieuport and Spad, the 
fast and high-powered biplanes which are the 
avions de chasse above the French lines. 

A spice of interest was added to the morn- 
ing's thrills when an American, not to be out- 
done by his French compatriot, wrecked a ma- 
chine so completely that it seemed incredible 
that he could have escaped without serious in- 
jury. But he did, and then we witnessed the 
amusing spectacle of an American, who had no 
French at all, explaining through the inter- 
preter just how the accident had happened. I 
saw his moniteur, who knew no English, grin in 
a relieved kind of way when the American 
crawled out from under the wreckage. The 
reception committee whispered to me, "This 
is Pourquoi, the best bawler-out we've got. 
' Pourquoi ? ' is always his first broadside. Then 
he wades in and you can hear him from one end 
of the field to the other. Attendez ! this is going 
to be rich!" 

Both of them started talking at once, the 
moniteur in French and the American in Eng- 
lish. Then they turned to the interpreter, and 

33 



High Adventure 

any one witnessing the conversation from a dis- 
tance would have thought that he was the cul- 
prit. The American had left the ground with 
the wind behind him, a serious fault in an 
airman, and he knew it very well. 

"Look here, Pete," he said; "tell him I know 
it was my fault. Tell him I took a Steve Brody. 
I wanted to see if the old cuckoo had any pep 
in 'er. When I — " 

"Pourquoi? Nom de Dieu! Qu'est-ce que je 
vous ai dit? Jamais faire comme ca! Jamais 
monter avec le vent en arriere ! Jamais ! Jamais ! " 

The others listened in hilarious silence while 
the interpreter turned first to one and then to 
the other. "Tell him I took a Steve Brody." I 
wondered if he translated that literally. Steve 
took a chance, but it is hardly to be expected 
that a Frenchman would know of that daring 
gentleman's history. In this connection, I re- 
member a little talk on caution which was 
given to us, later, by an English-speaking mon- 
iteur. It was after rather a serious accident, for 
which the spirit of Steve Brody was again re- 
sponsible. 

"You Americans," he said, "when you go to 

34 




YOU CAN DRIVE A "ZANG" TO WATER BUT 
YOU CAN'T MAKE IT DRINK 




PASSENGER KILLED ; PILOT BADLY INJURED 



Penguins 

the front you will get the Boche; but let me tell 
you, they will kill many of you. Not one or 
two; very many." 

Accidents delayed the work of flying scarcely 
at all. As soon as a machine was wrecked, An- 
namites appeared on the spot to clear away 
the debris and take it to the repair-shops, where 
the usable portions were quickly sorted out. 
We followed one of these processions in, and 
spent an hour watching the work of this other 
department of aviation upon which our own 
was so entirely dependent. Here machines were 
being built as well as repaired. The air vibrated 
with the hum of machinery, with the clang of 
hammers upon anvils and the roar of motors 
in process of being tested. 

There was a small army of women doing work 
of many kinds. They were quite apt at it, par- 
ticularly in the department where the fine 
strong linen cloth which covers the wings was 
being sewn together and stretched over the 
framework. There were great husky peasant- 
women doing the hardest kind of manual labor. 
In these latter days of the great world-war, 
women are doing everything, surely, with the 

35 



High Adventure 

one exception of fighting. It is not a pleasant 
thing to see them, however strong they may be, 
doing the rough, coarse work of men, bearing 
great burdens on their backs as though they 
were oxen. There must be many now whose 
muscles are as hard and whose hands as horny 
as those of a stevedore. Several months after 
this time, when we were transferred to another 
school of aviation, one of the largest in Europe, 
we saw women employed on a much larger 
scale. They lived in barracks which were no 
better than our own, — not so good, in fact, — ■ 
and roughed it like common soldiers. 

Toward evening the wind freshened and fly- 
ing was brought to a halt. Then the Penguins 
were brought from their hangars, and Drew and 
I, properly dressed this time, and accompanied 
by some of the Americans, went out to the field 
for our first sortie. As is usual on such occa- 
sions, there was no dearth of advice. Every 
graduate of the Penguin class had a method of 
his own for keeping that unmanageable bird 
traveling in a direct line, and everyone was only 
too willing to give us the benefit of his experi- 
ence. Finally, out of the welter of suggestions, 

36 



Penguins 

one or two points became clear : it was impor- 
tant that one should give the machine full gas, 
and get the tail off the ground. Then, by skill- 
ful handling of the rudder, it might be kept 
traveling in the same general direction. But if, 
as usually happened, it showed willful tenden- 
cies, and started to turn within its own length, 
it was necessary to cut the contact, to prevent 
it from whirling so rapidly as to overturn. 

Never have I seen a stranger sight than that 
of a swarm of Penguins at work. They looked 
like a brood of prehistoric birds of enormous 
size, with wings too short for flight. Most un- 
wieldy birds they were, driven by, or more ac- 
curately, driving beginners in the art of flying; 
but they ran along the ground at an amazing 
speed, zigzagged this way and that, and whirled 
about as if trying to catch their own tails. As 
we stood watching them, an accident occurred 
which would have been laughable had we not 
been too nervous to enjoy it. In a distant part 
of the field two machines were rushing wildly 
about. There were acres of room in which 
they might pass, but after a moment of uncer- 
tainty, they rushed headlong for each other as 

37 



High Adventure 

though driven by the hand of fate, and met 
head-on, with a great rending of propellers. The 
onlookers along the side of the field howled and 
pounded each other in an ecstasy of delight, but 
Drew and I walked apart for a hasty consulta- 
tion, for it was our turn next. We kept rehears- 
ing the points which we were to remember in 
driving a Penguin : full gas and tail up at once. 
Through the interpreter, our moniteur explained 
very carefully what we were to do, and mounted 
the step, to show us, in turn, the proper hand- 
ling of the gas manet and of the coupe-contact 
button. Then he stepped down and shouted, 
"Allez! en route!" with a smile meant to be re- 
assuring. 

I buckled myself in, fastened my helmet, and 
nodded to my mechanic. 

"Coupe, plein gaz," he said. 

"Coupe, plein gaz," I repeated. 

He gave the propeller a few spins to suck in 
the mixture. 

"Contact, reduisez." 

"Contact, reduisez." 

Again he spun the propeller, and the motor 
took. I pulled back my manet, full gas, and off 

38 



Penguins 

I went at what seemed to me then breakneck 
speed. Remembering instructions, I pushed 
forward on the lever which governs the elevat- 
ing planes, and up went my tail so quickly and 
at such an angle that almost instinctively I cut 
off my contact. Down dropped my tail again, 
and I whirled round in a circle — my first 
cheval de bois> as this absurd-looking manoeuvre 
is called. I had forgotten that I had a rudder. 
I was like a man learning to swim, and could 
not yet coordinate the movements of my hands 
and feet. My bird was purring gently, with the 
propeller turning slowly. It seemed thoroughly 
domesticated, but I knew that I had but to 
pull back on that manet to transform it into a 
rampant bird of prey. Before starting again I 
looked about me, and there was Drew racing all 
over the field. Suddenly he started in my di- 
rection as if the whole force of his will was 
turned to the business of running me down. 
Luckily he shut off his motor, and by the grace 
of the law of inertia came to a halt when he was 
within a dozen paces of me. 

We turned our machines tail to tail and 
started off in opposite directions, but in a mo- 

39 



High Adventure 

ment I was following hard after him. Almost 
it seemed that those evil birds had wills of their 
own. Drew's turned as though it were angry 
at the indignity of being pursued. We missed 
each other, but it was a near thing, and, not 
being able to think fast enough, I stalled my 
motor, and had to await helplessly the assist- 
ance of a mechanic. Far away, at our starting- 
point, I could see the Americans waving their 
arms and embracing each other in huge delight, 
and then I realized why they had all been so 
eager to come with us to the field. They had 
been through all this. Now they were having 
their innings. I could hear them shouting, al- 
though their voices sounded very thin and faint. 
"Why don't you come back?" they yelled. 
"This way! Here we are! Here's your class!" 
They were having the time of their vindictive 
lives, and knew very well that we would go 
back if we could. 

Finally we began to get the hang of it, and 
we did go back, although by circuitous routes. 
But we got there, and the moniteur explained 
again what we were to do. We were to antici- 
pate the turn of the machine with the rudder, 

40 



Penguins 

just as in sailing a boat. Then we understood 
the difficulty. In my next sortie, I fixed my 
eye upon the flag at the opposite side of the 
field, and reached it without a single cheval de 
bois. I could have kissed the Annamite who 
was stationed there to turn the machines which 
rarely came. I had mastered the Penguin! I 
had forced my will upon it, compelled it to do 
my bidding! Back across the field I went, 
keeping a direct course, and thinking how they 
were all watching, the moniteur, doubtless, mak- 
ing approving comments. I reduced the gas at 
the proper time, and taxied triumphantly up 
to the starting-point. 

But no one had seen my splendid sortie. 
Now that I had arrived, no one paid the least 
attention to me. All eyes were turned upward, 
and following them with my own, I saw an 
airplane outlined against a heaped-up pile of 
snow-white cloud. It was moving at tremen- 
dous speed, when suddenly it darted straight 
upward, wavered for a second or two, turned 
slowly on one wing and fell, nose-down, turn- 
ing round and round as it fell, like a scrap of 
paper. It was the vrille, the prettiest piece of 

4i 



High Adventure 



aerial acrobatics that one could wish to see. It 
was a wonderful, an incredible sight. Only 
seven years ago Bleriot crossed the English 
Channel, and a year earlier the world was aston- 
ished at the exploits of the Wright brothers, 
who were making flights, straight-line flights, 
of from fifteen to twenty minutes' duration! 

Some one was counting the turns of the vrille. 
Six, seven, eight; then the airman came out of 
it on an even keel, and, nosing down to gather 
speed, looped twice in quick succession. After- 
ward he did the retournement, turning com- 
pletely over in the air and going back in the op- 
posite direction; then spiraled down and passed 
over our heads at about fifty metres, landing 
at the opposite side of the field so beautifully 
that it was impossible to know when the ma- 
chine touched the ground. The airman taxied 
back to the hangars and stopped just in front 
of us, while we gathered round to hear the latest 
news from the front. 

For he had left the front, this birdman, only 
an hour before! I was incredulous at first, for 
I still thought of distances in the old way. But 
I was soon convinced. Mounted on the hood 

42 



Penguins 

was the competent-looking Vickers machine 
gun, with a long belt of cartridges in place, and 
on the side of the fuselage were painted the in- 
signia of an escadrille. 

The pilot was recognized as soon as he re- 
moved his helmet and goggles. He had been 
a moniteur at the school in former days, and was 
well known to some of the older Americans. He 
greeted us all very cordially, in excellent Eng- 
lish, and told us how, on the strength of a hard 
morning's work over the lines, he had asked his 
captain for an afternoon off that he might visit 
his old friends at B . 

As soon as he had climbed down, those of us 
who had never before seen this latest type of 
French avion de ckasse, crowded round, examin- 
ing and admiring with feelings of awe and rev- 
erence. It was a marvelous piece of aero-crafts- 
manship, the result of more than two years of 
accumulating experience in military aviation. 
It was hard to think of it as an inanimate thing, 
once having seen it in the air. It seemed living, 
intelligent, almost human. I could readily un- 
derstand how it is that airmen become attached 
to their machines and speak of their fine points, 

43 



High Adventure 

their little peculiarities of individuality, with 
a kind of loving interest, as one might speak of 
a fine-spirited horse. 

While the mechanicians were grooming this 
one, and replenishing the fuel-tanks, Drew and 
I examined it line by line, talking in low tones 
which seemed fitting in so splendid a presence. 
We climbed the step and looked down into the 
compact little car, where the pilot sat in a lux- 
uriously upholstered seat. There were his com- 
pass, his altimetre, his revolution-counter, his 
map in its roller case, with a course pricked out 
on it in a red line. Attached to the machine 
gun, there was an ingenious contrivance by 
means of which he fired it while still keeping a 
steady hand on his controls. The gun itself was 
fired directly through the propeller by means 
of a device which timed the shots. The neces- 
sity for accuracy in this timing device is clear, 
when one remembers that the propeller turns 
over at a normal rate of between fifteen hun- 
dred and nineteen hundred revolutions per 
minute. 

It was with a chastened spirit that I looked 
from this splendid fighting 'plane, back to my 

44 



Penguins 

little three-cylinder Penguin, with its absurd 
clipped wings and its impudent tail. A moment 
ago it had seemed a thing of speed, and the 
mastery of it a glorious achievement. I told 
Drew what my feeling was as I came racing 
back to the starting-point, and how brief my 
moment of triumph had been. He answered 
me at first in grunts and nods, so that I knew 
he was not listening. Presently he began to 
talk about romance again, the "romance of 
high adventure," as he called it. "All this" — 
moving his arm in a wide gesture — was but an 
evidence of man's unconquerable craving for 
romance. War itself was a manifestation of it, 
gave it scope, relieved the pent-up longings for 
it which could not find sufficient outlet in times 
of peace. Romance would always be one of the 
minor, and sometimes one of the major causes 
for war, indirectly of course, but none the less 
really; for the craving for it was one reason why 
millions of men so readily accepted war at the 
hands of the little groups of diplomats who 
ruled their destinies. 

Half an hour later, as we stood watching the 
little biplane again climbing into the evening 

45 



High Adventure 

sky, I understood, in a way, what he was driv- 
ing at, and with what keen anticipation he was 
looking forward to the time when we too would 
know all that there was to know of the joy of 
flight. Higher and higher it mounted, now and 
then catching the sun on its silver wings in a 
flash of light, growing smaller and smaller, until 
it vanished in a golden haze, far to the north. 
It was then four o'clock. In an hour's time the 
pilot would be circling down over his aero- 
drome on the Champagne front. 



Ill 

BY THE ROUTE OF THE AIR 

The winter of 19 16-17 was the most prolonged 
and bitter that France has known in many 
years. It was a trying period to the little group 
of Americans assembled at the Ecole Militaire 
d 'Aviation, eager as they were to complete their 
training, and to be ready, when spring should 
come, to share in the great offensive, which 
they knew would then take place on the West- 
ern front. Aviation is a waiting game at the 
best of seasons. In winter it is a series of seem- 
ingly endless delays. Day after day, the plain 
on the high plateau overlooking the old city of 

V was storm-swept, a forlorn and desolate 

place as we looked at it from our windows, 
watching the flocks of crows as they beat up 
against the wind, or as they turned, and were 
swept with it, over our barracks, crying and 
calling derisively to us as they passed. 

"Birdmen do you call yourselves?" they 
seemed to say. "Then come on up; the weath- 
er 's fine!" 

47 



High Adventure 



Well they knew that we were impostors, 
fair-weather fliers, who dared not accept their 
challenge. 

It is strange how vague and shadowy my 
remembrance is of those long weeks of inactiv- 
ity, when we were dependent for employment 
and amusement on our own devices. To me 
there was a quality of unreality about our life 

at B . Our environment was, no doubt, 

partly responsible for this feeling. Although we 
were not far distant from Paris, — less than an 
hour by train, — the country round about our 
camp seemed to be quite cut off from the rest 
of the world. With the exception of our Sun- 
day afternoons of leave, when we joined the 
boulevardiers in town, we lived a life as remote 
and cloistered as that of some brotherhood of 
monks in an inaccessible monastery. That is 
how it appeared to me, although here again I 
am in danger of making it seem that my own 
impressions were those of all the others. This 
of course was not true. The spirit of the place 
appealed to us, individually, in widely different 
ways, and upon some, perhaps, it had no effect 
at all. 

48 



By the Route of the Air 

Sometimes we spent our winter afternoons of 
enforced leisure in long walks through country 
roads which lay empty to the eye for miles. 
They gave one a sense of loneliness which col- 
ored thought, not in any sentimental way, but 
in a manner very natural and real. The war was 
always in the background of one's musings, and 
while we were far removed from actual contact 
with it, every depopulated country village 
brought to mind the sacrifice which France has 
made for the cause of all freedom-loving na- 
tions. Every roadside cafe, long barren of its 
old patronage, was an evidence of the com- 
pleteness of the sacrifice. Americans, for the 
most part, are of an unconquerably healthy 
cast of mind ; but there were few of us who could 
frequent these places light-heartedly. 

Paris was our emotional storehouse, to use 
Kipling's term, during the time we were at 

B . We spent our Sunday afternoons there, 

mingling with the crowds on the boulevards, 
or, in pleasant weather, sitting outside the 
cafes, watching the soldiers of the world go by. 
The streets were filled with permissionnaires 
from all parts of the Western front, and there 

49 



High Adventure 

were many of those despised of all the rest, the 
embusques, as they are called, who hold the 
comfortable billets in safe places well back of 
the lines. It was very easy to distinguish them 
from the men newly arrived from the trenches, 
in whose eyes one saw the look of wonder, al- 
most of unbelief, that there was still a goodly 
world to be enjoyed. It was often beyond the 
pathetic to see them trying to satisfy their need 
for all the wholesome things of life in a brief 
seven days of leave; to see the family parties 
at the modest restaurants on the side streets, 
making merry in a kind of forced way, as if 
every one were thinking of the brevity of the 
time for such enjoyment. 

Scarcely a week went by without bringing 
one or two additional recruits to the Franco- 
American Corps. We wondered why they came 
so slowly. There must have been thousands of 
Americans who would have been, not only will- 
ing, but glad to join us; and yet the opportuni- 
ties for doing so had been made widely known. 
For those who did come this was the legitimate 
by-product of glorious adventure and a train- 
ing in aviation not to be surpassed in Europe. 

5o 



By the Route of the Air 

This was to be had by any healthy young 
American, almost for the asking; but our num- 
bers increased very gradually, from fifteen to 
twenty-five, until by the spring of 19 17 there 
were fifty of us at the various aviation schools 
of France. Territorially we represented at least 
a dozen states, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
There were rich men's sons and poor men's sons 
among our number; the sons of very old fami- 
lies, and those who neither knew nor cared 
what their antecedents were. 

The same was true of our French comrades, 
for membership in the French air service is not 
based upon wealth or family position or politi- 
cal influence. The policy of the Government is 
as broad and democratic as may be. Men are 
chosen because of an aptitude that promises 
well, or as a reward for distinguished service 
at the front. A few of the French eleves-pilotes 
had been officers, but most of them N.C.O.'s 
and private soldiers in infantry or artillery 
regiments. This very wide latitude in choice 
at first seemed "laxitude" to some of us 
Americans. But evidently, experience in train- 
ing war pilots, and the practical results ob- 

5i 



High Adventure 

tained by these men at the front, have been 
proof enough to the French authorities of the 
folly of setting rigid standards, making hard- 
and-fast rules to be met by prospective avia- 
tors. As our own experience increased, we saw 
the wisdom of a policy which is more concerned 
with a man's courage, his self-reliance, and his 
powers of initiative, than with his ability to 
work out theoretical problems in aerodynamics. 

There are many French pilots with excellent 
records of achievement in war-flying who have 
but a sketchy knowledge of motor and aircraft 
construction. Some are college-bred men, but 
many more have only a common-school educa- 
tion. It is not at all strange that this should be 
the case, for one may have had no technical 
training worth mentioning; one may have only 
a casual speaking acquaintance with motors, 
and a very imperfect idea of why and how one 
is able to defy the law of gravity, and yet prove 
his worth as a pilot in what is, after all, the best 
possible way — by his record at the front. 

A judicious amount of theoretical instruction 
is, of course, not wanting in the aviation schools 
of France; but its importance is not exaggerated. 

52 



By the Route of the Air 

We Americans, with our imperfect knowledge 
of the language, lost the greater part of this. 
The handicap was not a serious one, and I 
think I may truthfully say that we kept pace 
with our French comrades. The most impor- 
tant thing was to gain actual flying experience, 
and as much of it as possible. Only in this way 
can one acquire a sensitive ear for motors, and 
an accurate sense of flying speed: the feel of 
one's machine in the air. These are of the great- 
est importance. Once the pilot has developed 
this airman's sixth sense, he need not, and 
never does, worry about the scantiness of his 
knowledge of the theory of flight. 

Sometimes the winds would die away and the 
thick clouds lift, and we would go joyously to 
work on a morning of crisp, bright winter 
weather. Then we had moments of glorious 
revenge upon the crows. They would watch 
us from afar, holding noisy indignation meet- 
ings in a row of weather-beaten trees at the far 
side of the field. And when some inexperienced 
pilot lost control of his machine and came 
crashing to earth, they would take the air in a 
body, circling over the wreckage, cawing and 

53 



High Adventure 

jeering with the most evident delight. "The 
Oriental Wrecking Company/' as the Anna- 
mites were called, were on the scene almost as 
quickly as our enemies the crows. They were 
a familiar sight on every working day, chat- 
tering together in their high-pitched gutturals, 
as they hauled away the wrecked machines. 
They appeared to side with the birds, and must 
have thought us the most absurd of men, mak- 
ing wings for ourselves, and always coming to 
grief when we tried to use them. 

We made progress regardless of all this skep- 
ticism. It was necessarily slow, for beginners 
at a single-command monoplane school are per- 
mitted to fly only under the most favorable 
weather conditions. Even then, old Mother 
Earth, who is not kindly disposed toward those 
of her children who leave her so jauntily, would 
clutch us back to her bosom, whenever we gave 
her the slightest opportunity, with an embrace 
that was anything but tender. We were in- 
clined to think rather highly of our own cour- 
age in defying her; and sometimes our vanity 
was increased by our moniteurs. After an ex- 
citing misidventure they often gave expres- 

54 



By the Route of the Air 

sion to their relief at finding an amateur pilot 
still whole, by praising his "presence of mind" 
in too generous French fashion. 

We should not have been so proud, I think, 
of our own little exploits, had we remembered 
those of the pioneers in aviation, so many of 
whom lost their lives in experiment with the 
first crude types of the heavier-than-air ma- 
chines. They were pioneers in the fine and 
splendid meaning of the word — men to be 
compared in spirit with the old fifteenth-cen- 
tury navigators. We were but followers, ad- 
venturing, in comparative safety, along a well- 
defined trail. 

This, at any rate, was Drew's opinion. He 
would never allow me the pleasure of indulging 
in any flights of fancy over these trivial adven- 
tures of ours. He would never let me set them 
off against "the heroic background" of Paris. 
As for Paris, we saw nothing of war there, he 
would say, except the lighter side, the home- 
coming, leave-enjoying side. We needed to 
know more of the horror and the tragedy of it. 
We needed to keep that close and intimate to 
us as a right perspective for our future adven- 

55 



High Adventure 

tures. He believed it to be our duty as aviators 
to anticipate every kind of experience which 
W5 might have to meet at the front. His imag- 
ination was abnormally vivid. Once he dis- 
cussed the possibility of " falling in flames," 
which is so often the end of an airman's career. 
I shall never again be able to take the same 
whole-hearted delight in flying that I did before 
he was so horribly eloquent upon the subject. 
He often speculated upon one's emotions in 
falling in a machine damaged beyond the pos- 
sibility of control. 

"Now try to imagine it," he would say: 
"your gasoline tanks have been punctured and 
half of your fuselage has been shot away. You 
believe that there is not the slightest chance 
for you to save your life. What are you going 
to do — lose your head and give up the game? 
No, you've got to attempt the impossible"; 
and so on, and so forth. 

I would accuse him of being morbid. Further- 
more, I saw no reason why we should plan for 
terrible emergencies which might never arrive. 
His answer was that we were military pilots in 
training for combat machines. We had no right 

56 



By the Route of the Air 

to ignore the grimness of the business ahead of 
us. If we did, so much the worse for us when we 
should go to the front. But beyond this practi- 
cal interest, he had a great curiosity about 
the nature of fear, and a great dread of it, too. 
He was afraid that in some last adventure, in 
which death came slowly enough for him to 
recognize it, he might die like a terror-stricken 
animal, and not bravely, as a man should. 

We did not often discuss these gruesome pos- 
sibilities, although this was not Drew's fault. 
I would not listen to him; and so he would 
be silent about them until convinced that the 
furtherance of our careers as airmen demanded 
additional unpleasant imaginings. There was 
something of the Hindoo fanatic in him ; or per- 
haps it was the outcropping of the stern spirit 
of his New England forbears. But when he 
talked of the pleasant side of the adventures 
before us, it was more than compensation for 
all the rest. Then he would make me restless 
and impatient, for I did not have his faculty of 
enjoyment in anticipation. The early period of 
training, when we were flying only a few metres 
above the ground, seemed endless. 

57 



High Adventure 

At last came the event which really marked 
the beginning of our careers as airmen : the first 
tour de piste, the first flight round the aero- 
drome. We had talked of this for weeks, but 
when at last the day for it came, our enthusiasm 
had waned. We were eager to try our wings 
and yet afraid to make the start. 

This first tour de piste was always the oc- 
casion for a gathering of the Americans, and 
there was the usual assembly present. The 
beginners were there to shiver in anticipation 
of their own forthcoming trials, and the more 
advanced pilots, who had already taken the 
leap, to offer gratuitous advice. 

"Now don't try to pull any big league stuff. 
Not too much rudder on the turns. Remember 
how that Frenchman piled up on the Farman 
hangars when he tried to bank the corners." 

"You'll find it pretty rotten when you go 
over the woods. The air currents there are 
something scandalous!" 

"Believe me, it's a lot worse over the fort. 
Rough? Oh, la la!" 

"And that's where you have to cut your 
motor and dive, if you're going to make a 

58 





'553! 




AERIAL LANDING-STAGES MAY BE PRACTICABLE 



By the Route of the Air 

landing without hanging up in the telephone 



wires." 



"When you do come down, don't be afraid 
to stick her nose forward. Scare the life out of 
you, that drop will, but you may as well get 
used to it in the beginning." 

" But wait till we see them redress ! Where 's 
the Oriental Wrecking Gang?" 

"Don't let that worry you, Drew: pan-cak- 
ing is n't too bad. Not in a Bleriot. Just like 
falling through a shingle roof. Can't hurt your- 
self much." 

"If you do spill, make it a good one. There 
has n't been a decent smash-up to-day." 

These were the usual comforting assurances. 
They did not frighten us much, although there 
was just enough truth in the warnings to make 
us uneasy. We took our hazing as well as we 
could inwardly, and of course with imperturb- 
able calm outwardly; but, to make a confession, 
I was somewhat reluctant to hear the business- 
like "Allez! en route!" of our moniteur. 

When it came, I taxied across to the other 
side of the field, turned into the wind, and came 
racing back, full motor. It seemed a thing of 

59 



High Adventure 

tremendous power, that little forty-five-horse- 
power Anzani. The roar of it struck awe into 
my soul, and I gripped the controls in no very 
professional manner. Then, when I had gath- 
ered full ground speed, I eased her off gently, 
and up we went, over the class and the assem- 
bled visitors, above the hangars, the lake, the 
forest, until, at the halfway point, my altim- 
etre registered three hundred and fifty metres. 
Out of the corner of my eye I saw all the beau- 
tiful countryside spread out beneath me, but 
I was too busily occupied to take in the pros- 
pect. I was watching my wings, nervously, in 
order to anticipate and counteract the slightest 
pitch of the machine. But nothing happened, 
and I soon realized that this first grand tour 
was not going to be nearly so bad as we had 
been led to believe. I began to enjoy it. I even 
looked down over the side of the fuselage, al- 
though it was a very hasty glance. 

All the time I was thinking of the rapidly ap- 
proaching moment when I should have to come 
down. I knew well enough how the descent was 
to be made. It was very simple. I had only to 
shut off my motor, push forward with my 

60 



By the Route of the Air 

"broom-stick," — the control connected with 
the elevating planes, — and then wait and 
redress gradually, beginning at from six to 
eight metres from the ground. The descent 
would be exciting, a little more rapid than 
Shooting the Chutes. Only one could not safely 
hold on to the sides of the car and await the 
splash. That sort of thing had sometimes been 
done in aeroplanes, by over-excited pilots. The 
results were disastrous, without exception. 

The moment for the decision came. I was 
above the fort, otherwise I should not have 
known when to dive. At first the sensation was, 
I imagine, exactly that of falling, feet foremost; 
but after pulling back slightly on the controls, 
I felt the machine answer to them, and the un- 
comfortable feeling passed. I brought up on 
the ground in the usual bumpy manner of the 
beginner. Nothing gave way, however, so this 
did not spoil the fine rapture of a rare moment. 
It was shared — at least it was pleasant to 
think so — by my old Annamite friend of the 
Penguin experience, who stood by his flag nod- 
ding his head at me. He said, "Beaucoup bon," 
showing his polished black teeth in an approv- 

61 



High Adventure 

ing grin. I forgot for the moment that "beau- 
coup bon" was his enigmatical comment upon 
all occasions, and that he would have grinned 
just as broadly had he been dragging me out 
from a mass of wreckage. 

Drew came in a few moments later, making 
an almost perfect landing. In the evening we 
walked to a neighboring village, where we had 
a wonderful dinner to celebrate the end of our 
apprenticeship. It was a curious feast. We 
had little to say to one another, or, better, we 
were both afraid to talk. We were under an 
enchantment which words would have broken. 
After a silent meal, we walked all the way home 
without speaking. 

We started off together on our triangles. 
That was in April, just passed, so that I have 
now brought this casual diary almost up to 
date. We were then at the great school of 

aviation at A in central France, where, for 

the first time, we were associated with men in 
training for every branch of aviation service, 
and became familiar with other types of French 
machines. But the brevet tests, which every 
pilot must pass before he becomes a military 

62 




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By the Route of the Air 

aviator, were the same in every department of 
the school. The triangles were two cross-coun- 
try flights of two hundred kilometres each, 
three landings to be made en route, and each 
flight to be completed within forty-eight hours. 
In addition, there were two short voyages of 
sixty kilometres each — these preceded the 
triangular tests — and an hour of flight at a 
minimum altitude of sixty-five hundred feet. 

The short voyages gave us a delightful fore- 
taste of what was to come. We did them both 
one afternoon, and were at the hangars at five 
o'clock on the following morning, ready to 
make an early start. A fresh wind was blowing 
from the northeast, but the brevet moniteur, 
who went up for a short flight to try the air, 
came back with the information that it was 
quite calm at twenty-five hundred feet. We 
might start, he said, as soon as we liked. 

Drew, in his joy, embraced the old woman 
who kept a coffee-stall at the hangars, while I 
danced a one-step with a mechanician. Neither 
of them was surprised at this procedure. They 
were accustomed to such emotional outbursts 
on the part of aviators who, by the very na- 

6 3 



High Adventure 

ture of their calling, were always in the depths 
of despair or on the farthest jutting peak of 
some mountain of delight. Our departure had 
been delayed, day after day, for more than a 
week, because of the weather. We were so eager 
to start that we would willingly have gone off 
in a blizzard. 

During the week of waiting we had studied 
our map until we knew the location of every 
important road and railroad, every forest, river, 
canal, and creek within a radius of one hundred 
kilometres. We studied it at close range, on a 
table, and then on the floor, with the compass- 
points properly orientated, so that we might see 
all the important landmarks with the birdman's 
eye. We knew our course so well, that there 
seemed no possibility of our losing direction. 

Our military papers had been given us sev- 
eral days before. Among these was an ofrlcial- 
looking document to be presented to the mayor 
of any town or village near which we might be 
compelled to land. It contained an extract from 
the law concerning aviators, and the duty to- 
ward them of the civilian and military authori- 
ties. In another was an itemized list of the 

6 4 



By the Route of the Air 

amounts which might be exacted by farmers for 
damage to growing crops: so much for an at- 
terrissage in a field of sugar-beets, so much for 
wheat, etc. Besides these, we had a book of 
detailed instructions as to our duty in case of 
emergencies of every conceivable kind — among 
others, the course of action to be followed if we 
should be compelled to land in an enemy coun- 
try. At first sight this seemed an unnecessary 
precaution ; but we remembered the experience 

of one of our French comrades at B , who 

started confidently off on his first cross-coun- 
try flight. He lost his way and did not realize 
how far astray he had gone until he found him- 
self under fire from German anti-aircraft bat- 
teries on the Belgian front. 

The most interesting paper of all was our Or- 
dre de Service, the text of which was as follows : 

It is commanded that the bearer of this Order 

report himself at the cities of C and R , 

by the route of the air, flying an avion Caudron, 
and leaving the Ecole Militaire d'Aviation at 
A on the 21st of April, 19 17, without pas- 
senger on board. 

Signed, Le Capitaine B 

Commandant de l'Ecole. 

65 



High Adventure 

We read this with feelings which must have 
been nearly akin to those of Columbus on a 
memorable day in 1492 when he received his 
clearance papers from Cadiz. "By the route of 
the air!" How the imagination lingered over 
that phrase! We had the better of Columbus 
there, although we had to admit that there was 
more glamour in the hazard of his adventure 
and the uncertainty of his destination. 

Drew was ready first. I helped him into his 
fur-lined combination and strapped him to his 
seat. A moment later he was off. I watched 
him as he gathered height over the aerodrome. 
Then, finding that his motor was running satis- 
factorily, he struck out in an easterly direction, 
his machine growing smaller and smaller until 
it vanished in the early morning haze. I fol- 
lowed immediately afterward, and had a busy 
ten minutes, being buffeted this way and 
that, until, as the brevet moniteur had fore- 
told, I reached quiet air at twenty-five hundred 
feet. 

This was my first experience in passing from 
one air current to another. It was a unique 
one, for I was still a little incredulous. I had 

66 



By the Route of the Air 

not entirely lost my old boyhood belief that the 
wind went all the way up. 

I passed over the old cathedral town of B 

at fifteen hundred metres. Many a pleasant 
afternoon had we spent there, walking through 
its narrow, crooked streets, or lounging on the 
banks of the canal. The cathedral too was a 
favorite haunt. I loved the fine spaciousness 
of it. Looking down on it now, it seemed no 
larger than a toy cathedral in a toy town, such 
as one sees in the shops of Paris. The streets 
were empty, for it was not yet seven o'clock. 
Strips of shadow crossed them where taller 
roofs cut off the sunshine. A toy train, which I 
could have put nicely into my fountain-pen 
case, was pulling into a station no larger than 
a wren's house. The Greeks called their gods 
"derisive." No doubt they realized how small 
they looked to them, and how insignificant this 
little world of affairs must have appeared from 
high Olympus. 

There was a road, a fine straight thorough- 
fare converging from the left. It led almost due 
southwest. This was my route to C . I fol- 
lowed it, climbing steadily until I was at two 

67 



High Adventure 

thousand metres. I had never flown so high 
before. "Over a mile!" I thought. It seemed 
a tremendous altitude. I could see scores of 
villages and fine old chateaux, and great 
stretches of forest, and miles upon miles of 
open country in checkered patterns, just begin- 
ning to show the first fresh green of the early 
spring crops. It looked like a world planned and 
laid out by the best of Santa Clauses for the 
eternal delight of all good children. And for 
untold generations only the birds have had the 
privilege of seeing and enjoying it from the 
wing. Small wonder that they sing. As for 
non-musical birds — well, they all sing after 
a fashion, and there is no doubt that crows, at 
least, are extremely jealous of their prerogative 
of flight. 

My biplane was flying itself. I had nothing 
to do other than to give occasional attention 
to the revolution counter, altimetre, and speed- 
dial. The motor was running with perfect regu- 
larity. The propeller was turning over at 
twelve hundred revolutions per minute without 
the slightest fluctuation. Flying is the simplest 
thing in the world, I thought. Why does n't 

68 



By the Route of the Air 

every one travel by route of the air? If people 
knew the joy of it, the exhilaration of it, avia- 
tion schools would be overwhelmed with ap- 
plicants. Biplanes of the Farman and Voisin 
type would make excellent family cars, quite 
safe for women to drive. Mothers, busy with 
household affairs, could tell their children to 
"run out and fly" a Caudron such as I was 
driving, and feel not the slightest anxiety about 
them. I remembered an imaginative drawing I 
had once seen of aerial activity in 1950. Even 
house pets were granted the privilege of travel- 
ing by the air route. The artist was not far 
wrong except in his date. He should have put 
it at 1925. On a fine April morning there 
seemed no limit to the realization of such in- 
teresting possibilities. 

I had no more than started on my southwest 
course, as it seemed to me, when I saw the 

spires and the red-roofed houses of C , and, 

a kilometre or so from the outskirts, the bar- 
racks and hangars of the aviation school where 
I was to make the first landing. I reduced the 
gas, and, with the motor purring gently, began 
a long, gradual descent. It was interesting to 

69 



High Adventure 

watch the change in the appearance of the 
country beneath me as I lost height. Checker- 
board patterns of brown and green grew larger 
and larger. Shining threads of silver became 
rivers and canals, tiny green shrubs became 
trees, individual aspects of houses emerged. 
Soon I could see people going about the streets 
and laundry-maids hanging out the family 
washing in the back gardens. I even came low 
enough to witness a minor household tragedy 
— a mother vigorously spanking a small boy. 
Hearing the whir of my motor, she stopped in 
the midst of the process, whereupon the young- 
ster very naturally took advantage of his op- 
portunity to cut and run for it. Drew doubted 
my veracity when I told him about this. He 
called me an aerial eavesdropper and said that 
I ought to be ashamed to go buzzing over towns 
at such low altitudes, frightening housemaid ,, 
disorganizing domestic penal institutions, and 
generally disturbing the privacy of respectable 
French citizens. But I was unrepentant, for I 
knew that one small boy in France was thinking 
of me with joy. To have escaped maternal jus- 
tice with the assistance of an aviator would be 

70 



By the Route of the Air 

an event of glorious memory to him. How 
vastly more worth while such a method of es- 
cape, and how jubilant Tom Sawyer would 
have been over such an opportunity when his 
horrified warning, "Look behind you, aunt!" 
had lost efficacy. 

Drew had been waiting a quarter of an hour, 
and came rushing out to meet me as I taxied 
across the field. We shook hands as though we 
had not seen each other for years. We could 
not have been more surprised and delighted if 
we had met on another planet after long and 
hopeless wanderings in space. 

While I superintended the replenishing of 
my fuel and oil tanks he walked excitedly up 
and down in front of the hangars. He was an 
odd-looking sight in his flying clothes, with a 
pair of Meyrowitz goggles set back on his head, 
like another set of eyes, gazing at the sky with 
an air of wide astonishment. He paid no atten- 
tion to my critical comments, but started think- 
ing aloud as soon as I rejoined him. 

"It was lonely! Yes, by Jove! that was it. 
A glorious thing, one's isolation up there; but it 
was too profound to be pleasant. A relief to get 

7i 



High Adventure 

down again, to hear people talk, to feel the solid 
earth under one's feet. Howdid it impress you ? " 

This was like Drew. I felt ashamed of the 
lightness of my own thoughts, but I had to 
tell him of my speculations upon after-the-war 
developments in aviation: nurses flying Voi- 
sins, with the cars filled with babies; old men 
having after-dinner naps in twenty-three- 
metre Nieuports, fitted, for safety, with Sperry 
gyroscopes; family parties taking comfortable 
outings in gigantic biplanes of the R-6 type; 
mothers, as of old, gazing apprehensively at 
speed-dials, cautioning fathers about "driving 
too fast," and all of the rest. 

Drew looked at me reprovingly, to be sure, 
but he felt the need, just as I did, of an outlet 
to his feelings, and so he turned to this kind of 
comic relief with the most delightful reluctance. 
He quickly lost his reserve, and in the imagina- 
tive spree which followed we went far beyond 
the last outposts of absurdity. We laughed over 
our own wit until our faces were tired. How- 
ever, I will not be explicit about our folly. It 
might not be so amusing from a critical point of 
view. 

72 



By the Route of the Air 

After our papers had been viseed at the office 
of the commandant, we hurried back to our 
machines, eager to be away again. We were to 

make our second landing at R . It was 

about seventy kilometres distant and almost 
due north. The mere name of the town was an 
invitation. Somewhere, in one of the novels of 
William J. Locke, may be found this bit of 
dialogue : — ■ 

"But, master," said I, "there is, after all, 
color in words. Don't you remember how de- 
lighted you were with the name of a little town 
we passed through on the way to Orleans? 

R ? You were haunted by it and said it was 

like the purple note of an organ." 

We were haunted by it, too, for we were go- 
ing to that very town. We would see it long be- 
fore our arrival — a cluster of quaint old houses 
lying in the midst of pleasant fields, with roads 
curving toward it from the north and south, 
as though they were glad to pass through so 
delightful a place. Drew was for taking a leis- 
urely route to the eastward, so that we might 
look at some villages which lay some distance 
off our course. I wanted to fly by compass in 

73 



High Adventure 

a direct line, without following my map very 
closely. We had planned to fly together, and 
were the more eager to do this because of an 
argument we had had about the relative speed 
of our machines. He was certain that his was 
the faster. I knew that, with mine, I could fly 
circles around him. As we were not able to 
agree on the course, we decided to postpone the 
race until we started on the homeward journey. 
Therefore, after we had passed over the town, 
he waved his hand, bent off to the northeast, 
and was soon out of sight. 

I kept straight on, climbing steadily, until 
I was again at five thousand feet. As before, my 
motor was running perfectly and I had plenty 
of leisure to enjoy the always new sensation of 
flight and to watch the wide expanse of magnif- 
icent country as it moved slowly past. I let my 
mind lie fallow, and every now and then I 
would find it hauling out fragments of old 
memories which I had forgotten that I pos- 
sessed. 

I recalled, for the first time in many years, 
my earliest interpretations of the meanings of 
all the phenomena of the heavens. Two old 

74 



By the Route of the Air 

janitor saints had charge of the floor of the 
skies. One of them was a jolly old man who 
liked boys, and always kept the sky swept 
clean and blue. The other took a sour delight 
in shirking his duties, so that it might rain and 
spoil all our fun. Perhaps it was Drew's sense 
of loneliness and helplessness so far from earth, 
which made me think of winds and clouds in 
friendly human terms. However that may be, 
these reveries, hardly worthy of a military air- 
man, were abruptly broken into. 

All at once, I realized that, while my biplane 
was headed due north, I was drifting north and 
west. This seemed strange. I puzzled over it 
for some time, and then, brilliantly, in the man- 
ner of the novice, deduced the reason: wind. 
I was being blown off my course, all the while 
comfortably certain that I was flying in a di- 
rect line toward R . Our moniteurs had 

often cautioned us against being comfortably 
certain about anything while in the air. It was 
our duty to be uncomfortably alert. Wind! I 
wonder how many times we had been told to 
keep it in mind at all times, whether on the 
ground or in the air? And here was I forget- 

75 



High Adventure 

ting the existence of wind on the very first oc- 
casion. The speed of my machine and the cur- 
rent of air from the propeller had deceived 
me into thinking that I was driving dead into 
whatever breeze there was at that altitude. I 
discovered that it was blowing out of the east, 
therefore I headed a quarter into it, to over- 
come the drift, and looked for landmarks. 

I had not long to search. Wisps of mist ob- 
structed the view, and within ten minutes a 
bank of solid cloud cut it off completely. I had 
only a vague notion of my location with refer- 
ence to my course, but I could not persuade 
myself to come down just then. To be flying 
in the full splendor of bright April sunshine, 
knowing that all the earth was in shadow, gave 
me a feeling of exhilaration. For there is no 
sensation like that of flight, no isolation so 
complete as that of the airman who has above 
him only the blue sky, and below, a level floor 
of pure white cloud, stretching in an unbroken 
expanse toward every horizon. And so I kept 
my machine headed northeast, that I might 
regain the ground lost before I discovered the 
drift northwest. I had made a rough calcula- 

7 6 



By the Route of the Air 

tion of the time required to cover the seventy 

kilometres to R at the speed at which I 

was traveling. The rest I left to Chance, the 
godfather of all adventurers. 

He took the initiative, as he so frequently 
does with aviators who, in moments of calm 
weather, are inclined to forget that they are 
still children of earth. The floor of dazzling 
white cloud was broken and tumbled into 
heaped-up masses which came drifting by at 
various altitudes. They were scattered at first 
and offered splendid opportunities for aerial 
steeplechasing. Then, almost before I was 
aware of it, they surrounded me on all sides. 
For a few minutes I avoided them by flying in 
curves and circles in rapidly vanishing pools of 
blue sky. I feared to take my first plunge into 
a cloud, for I knew, by report, what an alarm- 
ing experience it is to the new pilot. 

The wind was no longer blowing steadily out 
of the east. It came in gusts from all points of 
the compass. I made a hasty revision of my 
opinion as to the calm and tranquil joys of 
aviation, thinking what fools men are who will- 
ingly leave the good green earth and trust them- 

77 



High Adventure 

selves to all the winds of heaven in a frail box 
of cloth-covered sticks. 

The last clear space grew smaller and smaller. 
I searched for an outlet, but the clouds closed 
in and in a moment I was hopelessly lost in a 
blanket of cold drenching mist. 

I could hardly see the outlines of my machine 
and had no idea of my position with reference 
to the earth. In the excitement of this new ad- 
venture I forgot the speed-dial, and it was not 
until I heard the air screaming through the 
wires that I remembered it. The indicator had 
leaped up fifty kilometres an hour above safety 
speed, and I realized that I must be traveling 
earthward at a terrific pace. The manner of 
the descent became clear at the same moment. 
As I rolled out of the cloud-bank, I saw the 
earth jauntily tilted up on one rim, looking like 
a gigantic enlargement of a page out of Peter 
Newell's " Slant Book." I expected to see dogs 
and dishpans, baby carriages and ash-barrels 
roll out of every house in France, and go clat- 
tering off into space. 



IV 

AT G. D. E. 

Somewhere to the north of Paris, in the zone 
des armees, there is a village, known to all 
aviators in the French service as G. D. E. It 
is the village through which pilots who have 
completed their training at the aviation schools 
pass on their way to the front; and it is here 
that I again take up this journal of aerial ad- 
venture. 

We are in lodgings, Drew and I, at the Hotel 
de la Bonne Rencontre, which belies its name in 
the most villainous fashion. An inn at Roch- 
ester in the days of Henry the Fourth must 
have been a fair match for it, and yet there is 
something to commend it other than its con- 
venience to the flying field. Since the early 
days of the Escadrille Lafayette, many Amer- 
icans have lodged here while awaiting their 
orders for active service. As I write, J. B. is 
asleep in a bed which has done service for a long 
line of them. It is for this reason that he chose 
it, in preference to one in a much better state 

79 



High Adventure 

of repair which he might have had. And he 
has made plans for its purchase after the war. 
Madame Rodel is to keep careful record of all 
its American occupants, just as she has done in 
the past. She is pledged not to repair it beyond 
the bare necessity which its uses as a bed may 
require, an injunction which it was hardly 
necessary to lay upon her, judging by the other 
furniture in our apartment. Drew is not senti- 
mental, but he sometimes carries sentiment to 
extremities which appear to me absurd. 

When I attempt to define, even to myself, 
the charm of our adventures thus far, I find it 
impossible. How, then, make it real to others ? 
To tell of aerial adventure one needs a new lan- 
guage, or, at least, a parcel of new adjectives, 
sparkling with bright and vivid meaning, as 
crisp and fresh as just-minted bank-notes. 
They should have no taint of flatness or in- 
sipidity. They should show not the faintest 
trace of wear. With them, one might hope, now 
and then, to startle the imagination, to set it 
running in channels which are strange and de- 
lightful to it. For there is something new under 
the sun: aerial adventure; and the most lively 

80 



At G. D. E. 

and unjaded fancy may, at first, need direction 
toward the realization of this fact. Soon it will 
have a literature of its own, of prose and poe- 
try, of fiction, biography, memoirs, of history 
which will read like the romance it really is. 
The essayists will turn to it with joy. And the 
poets will discover new aspects of beauty 
which have been hidden from them through 
the ages; and as men's experience "in the wide 
fields of air" increases, epic material which will 
tax their most splendid powers. 

This brings me sadly back to my own pur- 
pose, which is, despite many wistful longings 
of a more ambitious nature, to write a plain 
tale of the adventures of two members — ■ pro- 
spective up to this point — of the Escadrille 
Lafayette. To go back to some of those earlier 
ones, when we were making our first cross- 
country flights, I remember them now with a 
delight which, at the time, was not unmixed 
with other emotions. Indeed, an aviator, and 
a fledgling aviator in particular, often runs the 
whole gamut of human feeling during a single 
flight. I did in the course of half an hour, reach- 
ing the high C of acute panic as I came tum- 

81 



High Adventure 

bling out of the first cloud of my aerial experi- 
ence. Fortunately, in the air the sense of equi- 
librium usually compels one to do the right 
thing, and so, after some desperate handling of 
my " broom-stick," as the control is called which 
governs ailerons and elevating planes, I soon 
had the horizons nicely adjusted again. What 
a relief it was ! I shut down my motor and com- 
menced a more gradual descent, for I was lost, 
of course, and it seemed wiser to land and make 
inquiries than to go cruising over half of France 
looking for one among hundreds of picturesque 
old towns. There were at least a dozen within 
view. Some of them were at least a three hours' 
walk distant from each other. But in the air! 
I was free to go whither I would, and swiftly. 
After leisurely deliberation I selected one sur- 
rounded by wide fields which appeared to be as 
level as a floor. But as I descended the land- 
scape widened, billowing into hills and folding 
into valleys. By sheer good luck, nothing more, 
I made a landing without accident. My Cau- 
dron barely missed colliding with a hedge of 
fruit trees, rolled down a long incline, and 
stopped not ten feet short of a small stream. 

82 




AIRMEN PREFER A TREELESS COUNTRY 



At G. D. E. 

The experience taught me the folly of choosing 
landing-ground from high altitudes. I need n't 
have landed, of course, but I was then so much 
an amateur that the buffeting of cross-currents 
of air near the ground awed me into it, come 
what might. The village was out of sight over 
the crest of the hill. However, thinking that 
some one must have seen me, I decided to 
await developments where I was. 

Very soon I heard a shrill, jubilant shout. 
A boy of eight or ten years was running along 
the ridge as fast as he could go. Outlined 
against the sky, he reminded me of silhouettes 
I had seen in Paris shops, of children dancing, 
the very embodiment of joy in movement. He 
turned and waved to some one behind, whom 
I could not see, then came on again, stopping 
a short distance away, and looking at me with 
an air of awe, which, having been a small boy 
myself, I was able to understand and appre- 
ciate. I said, "Bonjour, mon petit," as cor- 
dially as I could, but he just stood there and 
gazed without saying a word. Then the others 
began to appear: scores of children, and old 
men as well, and women of all ages, some with 

83 



High Adventure 

babies in their arms, and young girls. The 
whole village came, I am sure. I was mightily 
impressed by the haleness of the old men and 
women, which one rarely sees in America. 
Some of them were evidently well over seventy, 
and yet, with one or two exceptions, they had 
sound limbs, clear eyes, and healthy complex- 
ions. As for the young girls, many of them were 
exceptionally pretty; and the children were 
sturdy youngsters, not the wan, thin-legged 
little creatures one sees in Paris. In fact, all of 
these people appeared to belong to a different 
race from that of the Parisians, to come from 
finer, more vigorous stock. 

They were very curious, but equally courte- 
ous, and stood in a large circle around my ma- 
chine, waiting for me to make my wishes known. 
For several minutes I pretended to be busy 
attending to dials and valves inside the car. 
While trying to screw my courage up to the 
point of making a verbless explanation of my 
difficulty, some one pushed through the crowd, 
and to my great relief began speaking to me. 
It was Monsieur the Mayor. As best I could, 
I explained that I had lost my way and had 

84 



At G. D. E. 

found it necessary to come down for the pur- 
pose of making inquiries. I knew that it was 
awful French, but hoped that it would be intel- 
ligible, in part at least. However, the Mayor 
understood not a word, and I knew by the 
curious expression in his eyes that he must be 
wondering from what weird province I hailed. 
After a moment's thought he said, "Vous etes 
Anglais, monsieur?" with a smile of very real 
pleasure. I said, "Non, monsieur, Americain." 
That magic word! What potency it has in 
France, the more so at that time, perhaps, for 
America had placed herself definitely upon the 
side of the Allies only a short time before. I 
enjoyed that moment. I might have had the 
village for the asking. I willingly accepted the 
role of ambassador of the American people. 
Had it not been for the language barrier, I 
think I would have made a speech, for I felt 
the generous spirit of Uncle Sam prompting 
me to give those fathers and mothers, whose 
husbands and sons were at the front, the 
promise of our unqualified support. I wanted 
to tell them that we were with them now, not 
only in sympathy, but with all our resources 

85 



High Adventure 

in men and guns and ships and aircraft. I 
wanted to convince them of our new under- 
standing of the significance of the war. Alas! 
this was impossible. Instead I gave each one 
of an army of small boys the privilege of sitting 
in the pilot's seat, and showed them how to 
manage the controls. 

The astonishing thing to me was, that while 
this village was not twenty kilometres off the 

much-frequented air route between C and 

R , mine was the first aeroplane which 

most of them had seen. During long months 
at various aviation schools pilots grow accus- 
tomed to thinking that aircraft are as famil- 
iar a sight to others as to them. But here was 
a village, not far distant from several aviation 
schools, where an aviator was looked upon 
with wonder. To have an American aviator 
drop down upon them was an event even in 
the history of that ancient village. To have 
been that aviator, — well, it was an unforget- 
table experience, coming as it did so oppor- 
tunely with America's entry into the war. I 
shall always have it in the background of mem- 
ory, and one day it will be among the pleas- 

86 



At G. D. E. 

antest of many pleasant tales which I shall 
have in store for my grandchildren. 

However, it is not their potentialities as 
memories which endear these adventures now, 
but rather it is because they are in such con- 
trast to any that we had known before. We 
are always comparing this new life with the 
old, so different in every respect as to seem a 
separate existence, almost a previous incarna- 
tion. 

Having been set right about my course, I 
pushed my biplane to more level ground, with 
the willing help of all the boys, started my 
motor, and was away again. Their shrill cheers 
reached me even above the roar of the motor. 
As a lad in a small, Middle-Western town, I 
have known the rapture of holding to a bal- 
loon guy-rope at a county fair, until "the 
world's most famous aeronaut" shouted, "Let 
'er go, boys!" and swung off into space. I kept 
his memory green until I had passed the first 
age of hero worship. I know that every young- 
ster in a small village in central France will 
so keep mine. Such fame is the only kind worth 
having. 

87 



High Adventure 

A flight of fifteen minutes brought me within 
sight of the large white circle which marks the 
landing-field at R . J. B. had not yet ar- 
rived. This was a great disappointment, for 
we had planned a race home. I was anxious 
about him, too, knowing that the godfather of 
all adventurers can be very stern at times, par- 
ticularly with his aerial godchildren. I waited 
for an hour and then decided to go on alone. 
The weather having cleared, the opportunity 
was too favorable to be lost. The cloud forma- 
tions were the most remarkable that I had 
ever seen. I flew around and over and under 
them, watching at close hand the play of light 
and shade over their great, billowing folds. 
Sometimes I skirted them so closely that the 
current of air from my propeller raveled out 
fragments of shining vapor, which streamed 
into the clear spaces like wisps of filmy silk. 
I knew that I ought to be savoring this experi- 
ence, but for some reason I could n't. One 
usually pays for a fine mood by a sudden and 
unaccountable change of feeling which shades 
off into a kind of dull, colorless depression. 

I passed a twin-motor Caudron going in the 
88 




FRENCH SOPWITH TWO-SEATER 




4; » T-. 



CAUDRON THREE-PASSENGER AVION 
TYPE R4 



At G. D. E. 

opposite direction. It was fantastically painted, 
the wings a bright yellow and the circular 
hoods, over the two motors, a fiery red. As it 
approached, it looked like some prehistoric bird 
with great ravenous eyes. The thing startled 
me, not so much because of its weird appear- 
ance as by the mere fact of its being there. 
Strangely enough, for a moment it seemed 
impossible that I should meet another avion. 
Despite a long apprenticeship in aviation, in 
these days when one's mind has only begun to 
grasp the fact that the mastery of the air has 
been accomplished, the sudden presentation of 
a bit of evidence sometimes shocks it into a 
moment of amazement bordering upon incre- 
dulity. 

As I watched the big biplane pass, I was con- 
scious of a feeling of loneliness. I remembered 
what J. B. had said that morning. There was 
something unpleasant in the isolation; it made 
us look longingly down to earth, wondering 
whether we shall ever feel really at home in the 
air. I, too, longed for the sound of human 
voices, and all that I heard was the roar of the 
motor and the swish of the wind through wires 

89 



High Adventure 

and struts, sounds which have no hur lan qual- 
ity in them, and are no more companionable 
than the lapping of the waves to a man adrift 
on a raft in mid-ocean. Underlying this feel- 
ing, and no doubt in part responsible for it, 
was the knowledge of the fallibility of that 
seemingly perfect mechanism which rode so 
steadily through the air; of the quick response 
that ingenious arrangement of inanimate mat- 
ter would make to an eternal and inexorable 
law if a few frail wires should part; of the 
equally quick, but less phlegmatic response of 
another fallible mechanism, capable of regis- 
tering horror, capable — it is said — of passing 
its past life in review in the space of a few sec- 
onds, and then — capable of becoming equally 
inanimate matter. 

Luckily nothing of this sort happened, and 
the feeling of loneliness passed the moment I 
came in sight of the long rows of barracks, the 
hangars and machine shops of the aviation 
school. My joy when I saw them can only be 
appreciated in full by fellow aviators who re- 
member the end of their own first long flight. 
I had been away for years. I would not have 

90 



At G. D. E. 

been surprised to find great changes. If the 
brevet monitor had come hobbling out to meet 
me holding an ear trumpet in his withered 
hand, the sight would have been quite in 
keeping with my own sense of the lapse of 
time. However, he approached with his an- 
cient springy, businesslike step, as I climbed 
down from my machine. I swallowed to clear 
the passage to my ears, and heard him say, 
"Alors ca va?" in a most disappointingly per- 
functory tone of voice. 

I nodded. 

"Where's your biograph?" 

My biograph! It is the altitude-registering 
instrument which also marks, on a cross-lined 
chart, the time consumed on each lap of an 
aerial voyage. My card should have shown 
four neat outlines in ink, something like this — 




one for each stage of my journey, including 
the forced landing when I had lost my way. 
But having started the mechanism going upon 

9i 



High Adventure 

leaving A , I had then forgotten all. about it, 

so that it had gone on running while my ma- 
chine was on the ground as well as during the 
time it was in the air. The result was a sketch 
of a magnificent mountain range which might 
have been drawn by the futurist son, aged five, 
of a futurist artist. Silently I handed over the 
instrument. The monitor looked at it, and then 
at me without comment. But there is an in- 
ternational language of facial expression, and 
his said, unmistakably, "You poor, simple 
prune! You choice sample of mouldy Ameri- 
can cheese!" 

J. B. did n't return until the following after- 
noon. After leaving me over C , he had 

blown out two spark-plugs. For a while he 
limped along on six cylinders, and then landed 
in a field three kilometres from the nearest 
town. His French, which is worse, if that is 
possible, than mine, aroused the suspicions of 
a patriot farmer, who collared him as a possible 
German spy. Under a bodyguard of two peas- 
ants, armed with hoes, he was marched to a 
neighboring chateau. And then, I should have 
thought, he would have had another histori- 

92 



At G. D. E. 

cal illusion, — ■ this time with a French Revolu- 
tionary setting. He says not, however. All his 
faculties were concentrated in enjoying this 
unusual adventure; and he was wondering 
what the outcome of it would be. At the cha- 
teau he met a fine old gentleman who spoke 
English with that nicety of utterance which 
only a cultivated Frenchman can achieve. He 
had no difficulty in clearing himself. Then he 
had dinner in a hall hung with armor and hunt- 
ing trophies, was shown to a chamber half as 
large as the lounge at the Harvard Club, and 
slept in a bed which he got into by means of a 
ladder of carved oak. This is a mere outline. 
Out of regard for J. B.'s opinions about the 
sanctities of his own personal adventures, I re- 
frain from giving further details. 

These were the usual experiences which 
every American pilot has had while on his 
brevet flights. As I write I think of scores of 
others, for they were of almost daily occur- 
rence. 

Jackson landed — unintentionally, of course 
— in a town square and was banqueted by the 
Mayor, although he had nearly run him down 

93 



High Adventure 

a few hours earlier, and had ruined forever his 
reputation as a man of dignified bearing. But 
the Mayor was not alone in his forced display 
of unseemly haste. Many other townspeople, 
long past the nimbleness of youth, rushed for 
shelter; and pride goeth before a collision with 
a wayward aeroplane. Jackson said the sky 
rained hats, market baskets, and wooden shoes 
for five minutes after his Bleriot had come to 
rest on the steps of the bureau de poste. And no 
one was hurt. 

Murphy's defective motor provided him with 
the names and addresses of every possible and 

impossible marraine in the town of Y , near 

which he was compelled to land. While wait- 
ing for the arrival of his mechanician with a 
new supply of spark-plugs, he left his mono- 
plane in a field close by. A path to the place 
was worn by the feet of the young women of 
the town, whose dearest wish appeared to be to 
have an aviator as a filleul. They covered the 
wings of his avion with messages in pencil. The 
least pointed of these hints were, ."Ecrivez le 
plus tot possible"; and, "Je voudrais bien un 
filleul americain, tres gentil, comme vous." 

94 



At G. D. E. 

Matthews' biplane crashed through the roof 
of a camp bakery. If he had practiced this un- 
usual atterrissage a thousand times he could not 
have done it so neatly as at the first attempt. 
He followed the motor through to the kitchen 
and finally hung suspended a few feet from the 
ceiling. The army bread-bakers stared up at 
him with faces as white as fear and flour could 
make them. The commandant of the camp 
rushed in. He asked, "What have you done 
with the corps?" The bread-bakers pointed to 
Matthews, who apologized for his bad choice 
of landing-ground. He was hardly scratched. 

Mac lost his way in the clouds and landed 
near a small village for gasoline and informa- 
tion. The information he had easily, but gaso- 
line was scarce. After laborious search through 
several neighboring villages he found a sup- 
ply and had it carried to the field where his ma* 
chine was waiting. Some farmer lads agreed 
to hold on to the tail while Mac started the 
engine. At the first roar of the rotary motor 
they all let loose. The Bleriot pushed Mac 
contemptuously aside, lifted its tail and rushed 
away. He followed it over a level tract of coun- 

95 



High Adventure 

try miles in extent, and found it at last in a 
ditch, nose down, tail in air, like a duck hunt- 
ing bugs in the mud. This story loses nine 
tenths of its interest for want of Mac's pungent 
method of telling it. 

One of the bona-fide godchildren of Chance 
was Millard. The circumstances leading to his 
engagement in the French service as a member 
of the Franco-American Corps proves this. Mil- 
lard was a real human being, — he had no gram- 
mar, no polish, no razor, safety or otherwise, 
but likewise no pretense, no "swank." He was 
persona non grata to a few, but the great 
majority liked him very much, although they 
wondered how in the name of all that is curious 
he had ever decided to join the French air serv- 
ice. Once he told us his history at great length. 
He had been a scout in the Philippine service 
of the American army. He had been a roust- 
about on cattle boats. He had boiled his coffee 
down by the stockyards in every sizable town 
on every transcontinental railroad in America. 
In the spring of 19 16 he had employment with 
a roofing company which had contracted for a 
job in Richmond, Virginia, I think it was. But 

96 



At G. D. E. 

Richmond went "dry" in the State elections; 
the roofing job fell through, owing, so Millard 
insisted, to the natural and inevitable depres- 
sion which follows a dry election. Having lost 
his prospective employment as a roofer, what 
more natural than that he should turn to this 
other high calling? 

He was game. He tried hard and at last 
reached his brevet tests. Three times he started 
off on triangles. No one expected to see him 
return, but he surprised them every time. He 
could never find the towns where he was sup- 
posed to land, so he would keep on going till 
his gas gave out. Then his machine would 
come down of itself, and Millard would crawl 
out from under the wreckage and come back 
by train. 

"I don't know," he would say doubtfully, 
rubbing his eight-days' growth of beard; "I'm 
seeing a lot of France, but this coming-down 
business ain't what it 's cracked up to be. I can 
swing in on the rods of a box car with the train 
going hell bent for election, but I guess I 'm too 
old to learn to fly." 

The War Office came to this opinion after 
97 



High Adventure 

Millard had smashed three machines in three 
tries. Wherever he may be now, I am sure that 
Chance is still ruling his destiny, and I hope, 
with all my heart, benevolently. 

Our final triangle was completed unevent- 
fully. J. B.'s motor behaved splendidly; I re- 
membered my biograph at every stage of the 
journey, and we were at home again within 
three hours. We did our altitude tests and were 
then no longer eleves pilotes, but pilotes avia- 
teurs. By reason of this distinction we passed 
from the rank of soldier of the second class to 
that of corporal. At the tailor's shop the wings 
and star insignia were sewn upon our collars 
and our corporal's stripes upon our sleeves. For 
we were proud, as every aviator is proud, who 
reaches the end of his apprenticeship and en- 
ters into the dignity of a brevetted military 
pilot. 

Six months have passed since I made the last 
entry in my journal. J. B. was asleep in his his- 
toric bed, and I was sitting at a rickety table 
writing by candle-light, stopping now and then 
to listen to the mutter of guns on the Aisne 

98 



At G. D. E. 

front. It was only at night that we could hear 
them, and then not often, the very ghost of 
sound, as faint as the beating of the pulses in 
one's ears. That was a May evening, and this, 
one late in November. I arrived at the Gare du 
Nord only a few hours ago. Never before have 
I come to Paris with a finer sense of the joy 
of living. I walked down the rue Lafayette, 
through the rue de Provence, the rue du Havre, 
to a little hotel in the vicinity of the Gare Saint- 
Lazare. Under ordinary circumstances none of 
these streets, nor the people in them, would 
have appeared particularly interesting. But 
on this occasion — it was the finest walk of my 
life. I saw everything with the eyes of the per- 
missionnaire, and sniffed the odors of roasting 
chestnuts, of restaurants, of shops, of people, 
never so keenly aware of their numberless 
variety. 

After dinner I walked out on the boulevards 
from the Madeleine to the Place de la Repub- 
lique, through the maze of narrow streets to the 
river, and over the Pont Neuf to Notre Dame. 
I was surprised that the spell which Hugo gives 
it should have lost none of its old potency for 

99 



High Adventure 

me after coming direct from the realities of 
modern warfare. If he were writing this jour- 
nal, what a story it would be! 

It will be necessary to pass rapidly over the 
period between the day when we received our 
brevets militaires and that upon which we 
started for the front. The event which bulked 
largest to us was, of course, the departure on 
active service. Preceding it, and next in im- 
portance, was the last phase of our training and 
the culmination of it all, at the School of Acro- 
bacy. Preliminary to our work there, we had a 
six weeks' course of instruction, first on the 
twin-motor Caudron and then on various 
types of the Nieuport biplane. We thought the 
Caudron a magnificent machine. We liked the 
steady throb of its powerful motors, the enor- 
mous spread of its wings, the slow, ponderous 
way it had of answering to the controls. It was 
our business to take officer observers for long 
trips about the country while they made photo- 
graphs, spotted dummy batteries, and per- 
fected themselves in the wireless code. At that 
time the Caudron had almost passed its period 
of usefulness at the front, and there was a pros- 

ioo 




THE NIEUPORT BIPLANE OF LIEUTENANT NUNGESSER 
THE FRENCH ACE 




SPAD BIPLANES OF CAPTAIN GUYNEMERS ESCADRILLE 



At G. D. E. 

pect of our being transferred to the yet larger 
and more powerful Leotard, a three-passenger 
biplane carrying two machine gunners besides 
the pilot, and from three to five machine guns. 
This appealed to us mightily. J. B. was always 
talking of the time when he would command 
not only a machine, but also a "gang of men." 
However, being Americans, and recruited for 
a particular combat corps which flies only sin- 
gle-seater avions de chasse y we eventually fol- 
lowed the usual course of training for such 
pilots. We passed in turn to the Nieuport bi- 
plane, which compares in speed and grace with 
these larger craft as the flight of a swallow with 
the movements of a great lazy buzzard. And 
now the Nieuport has been surpassed, and al- 
most entirely supplanted, by the Spad of 140, 
180, 200, and 230 horse-power, and we have 
transferred our allegiance to each in turn, mar- 
veling at the genius of the French in motor 
and aircraft construction. 

At last we were ready for acrobacy. I will 
not give an account of the trials by means of 
which one's ability as a combat pilot is most 
severely tested. This belongs among the pages 

101 



High Adventure 

of a textbook rather than in those of a journal 
of this kind. But to us who were to undergo 
the ordeal, — for it is an ordeal for the untried 
pilot, — our typewritten notes on acrobacy 
read like the pages of a fascinating romance. 
A year or two ago these aerial maneuvers would 
have been thought impossible. Now we were 
all to do them as a matter of routine training. 

The worst of it was, that our civilian pur- 
suits offered no criterion upon which to base 
forecasts of our ability as acrobats. There was 
J. B., for example. He knew a mixed meta- 
phor when he saw one, for he had had wide ex- 
perience with them as an English instructor at 
a New England "prep" school. But he had 
never done a barrel turn, or anything resem- 
bling it. How was he to know what his reaction 
would be to this bewildering maneuver, a series 
of rapid, horizontal, corkscrew turns? And to 
what use could I put my hazy knowledge of 
Massachusetts statutes dealing with neglect 
and non-support of family, in that exciting 
moment when, for the first time, I should be 
whirling earthward in a spinning nose-dive? 
Accidents and fatalities were most frequent 

102 



At G. D. E. 

at the school of acrobacy, for the reason that 
one could not know, beforehand, whether he 
would be able to keep his head, with the earth 
gone mad, spinning like a top, standing on one 
rim, turning upside down. 

In the end we all mastered it after a fashion, 
for the tests are by no means so difficult of ac- 
complishment as they appear to be. Up to this 
time, November 28, 19 17, there has been but 
one American killed at it in French schools. 
We were not all good acrobats. One must have 
a knack for it which many of us will never be 
able to acquire. The French have it in larger 
proportion than do we Americans. I can think 
of no sight more pleasing than that of a Spad 
in the air, under the control of a skillful French 
pilot. Swallows perch in envious silence on the 
chimney pots, and the crows caw in sullen de- 
spair from the hedgerows. 

At G. D. E., while awaiting our call to the 
front, we perfected ourselves in these maneu- 
vers, and practiced them in combat and group 
flying. There, the restraints of the schools were 
removed, for we were supposed to be accom- 
plished pilots. We flew when and in what man- 

103 



High Adventure 

ner we liked. Sometimes we went out in large 
formations, for a long flight; sometimes, in 
groups of two or three, we made sham attacks 
on villages, or trains, or motor convoys on the 
roads. It was forbidden to fly over Paris, and 
for this reason we took all the more delight in 
doing it. J. B. and I saw it in all its moods: in 
the haze of early morning, at midday when the 
air had been washed clean by spring rains, in 
the soft light of afternoon, — domes, theaters, 
temples, spires, streets, parks, the river, bridges, 
all of it spread out in magnificent panorama. 
We would circle over Montmartre, Neuilly, the 
Bois, Saint-Cloud, the Latin Quarter, and then 
full speed homeward, listening anxiously to the 
sound of our motors until we spiraled safely 
down over our aerodrome. Our monitor never 
asked questions. He is one of many Frenchmen 
whom we shall always remember with grati- 
tude. 

We learned the songs of all motors, the pecu- 
liarities and uses of all types of French avions, 
pushers and tractors, single motor and bi- 
motor, monoplace, biplace, and triplace, mono- 
plane and biplane. And we mingled with the 

104 



At G. D. E 

pilots of all these many kinds of aircraft. They 
were arriving and departing by every train, for 
G. D. E. is the depot for old pilots from the 
front, transferring from one branch of avia- 
tion to another, as well as for new ones fresh 
from the schools. In our talks with them, we 
became convinced that the air service is form- 
ing its traditions and developing a new type of 
mind. It even has an odor, as peculiar to itself 
as the smell of the sea to a ship. There are those 
who say that it is only a compound of burnt 
castor oil and gasoline. One might, with no 
more truth, call the odor of a ship a mixture of 
tar and stale cooking. But let it pass. It will 
be all things to all men; I can sense it as I write, 
for it gets into one's clothing, one's hair, one's 
very blood. 

We were as happy during those days at 
G. D. E. as any one has the right to be. Our 
whole duty was to fly, and never was the voice 
of Duty heard more gladly. It was hard to keep 
in mind the stern purpose behind this seeming 
indulgence. At times I remembered Drew's 
warning that we were military pilots and had no 
right to forget the seriousness of the work before 

105 



High Adventure 

us. But he himself often forgot it for days to- 
gether. War on the earth may be reasonable 
and natural, but in the air it seems the most 
senseless folly. How is an airman, who has 
just learned a new meaning for the joy of life, 
to reconcile himself to the insane business of 
killing a fellow aviator who may have just 
learned it too ? This was a question which we 
sometimes put to ourselves in purely Arcadian 
moments. We answered it, of course. 

I was sitting at our two-legged table, writing 
up my cornet de vol. Suzanne, the maid of all 
work at the Bonne Rencontre, was sweeping a 
passageway along the center of the room, telling 
me, as she worked, about her family. She was 
ticking off the names of her brothers and sisters, 
when Drew put his head through the doorway. 

"II y a Pierre," said Suzanne. 

"We're posted," said J. B. 

"Et Helene," she continued. 

I shall never know the names of the others. 



OUR FIRST PATROL 

We got down from the train late in the after- 
noon at a village which reminded us, at first 
glance, of a boom town in the Far West. Crude 
shelters of corrugated iron and rough pine 
boards faced each other down the length of one 
long street. They looked sadly out of place in 
that landscape. They did not have the cheery, 
buoyant ugliness of pioneer homes in an un- 
settled country, for behind them were the ruins 
of the old village, fragments of blackened wall, 
stone chimneys filled with accumulations of 
rubbish, garden-plots choked with weeds, re- 
minding us that here was no outpost of a new 
civilization, but the desolation of an old one, 
fallen upon evil days. 

A large crowd of permissionnaires had left 
the train with us. We were not at ease among 
these men, many of them well along in middle 
life, bent and streaming with perspiration under 
their heavy packs. We were much better able 
than most of them to carry our belongings, to 

107 



High Adventure 

endure the fatigue of a long night march to bil- 
lets or trenches; and we were waiting for the 
motor in which we should ride comfortably to 
our aerodrome. There we should sleep in beds, 
well housed from the weather, and far out of 
the range of shell fire. 

"It is n't fair," said J. B. "It is going to war 
de luxe. These old poilus ought to be the avia- 
tors. But, hang it all! of course, they could n't 
be. Aviation is a young man's business. It has 
to be that way. And you can't have aerodromes 
along the front-line trenches." 

Nevertheless, it did seem very unfair, and 
we were uncomfortable among all those infan- 
trymen. The feeling increased when attention 
was called to our branch of the service by the 
distant booming of anti-aircraft guns. There 
were shouts in the street, "A Boche!" We hur- 
ried to the door of the cafe where we had been 
hiding. Officers were ordering the crowds off 
the street. "Hurry along there! Under cover! 
Oh, I know that you're brave enough, mon 
enfant. It is n't that. He's not to see all these 
soldiers here. That's the reason. Allez! Vite!" 

Soldiers were going into dugouts and cellars 
108 




THE VALLEY 




DESOLATION 



Our First Patrol 

among the ruined houses. Some of them, seeing 
us at the door of the cafe, made pointed re- 
marks as they passed, grumbling loudly at the 
laxity of the air service. 

"It's up there you ought to be, mon vieux, 
not here," one of them said, pointing to the 
white eclatements. 

"You see that?" said another. "He's a 
Boche, not French, I can tell you that. Where 
are your comrades?" 

There was much good-natured chaffing as 
well, but through it all I could detect a note of 
resentment. I sympathized with their point of 
view then as I do now, although I know that 
there is no ground for the complaint of laxity. 
Here is a German over French territory. Where 
are the French aviators? Soldiers forget that 
aerial frontiers must be guarded in two dimen- 
sions, and that it is always possible for an 
airman to penetrate far into enemy country. 
They do not see their own pilots on their long 
raids into German territory. Furthermore, 
while the outward journey is often accom- 
plished easily enough, the return home is a dif- 
ferent matter. Telephones are busy from the 

109 



High Adventure 

moment the lines are crossed, and a hostile 
patrol, to say nothing of a lone avion, will be 
fortunate if it returns safely. 

But infantrymen are to be forgiven readily 
for their outbursts against the aviation service. 
They have far more than their share of danger 
and death while in the trenches. To have their 
brief periods of rest behind the lines broken into 
by enemy aircraft — who would blame them 
for complaining? And they are often generous 
enough with their praise. 

On this occasion there was no bombing. The 
German remained at a great height and quickly 
turned northward again. 

Dunham and Miller came to meet us. We 
had all four been in the schools together, they 
preceding us on active service only a couple of 
months. Seeing them after this lapse of time, I 
was conscious of a change. They were keen 
about life at the front, but they talked of their 
experiences in a way which gave one a feeling 
of tension, a tautness of muscles, a kind of ache 
in the throat. It set me to thinking of a con- 
versation I had had with an old French pilot, 
several months before. It came apropos of 

no 



Our First Patrol 

nothing. Perhaps he thought that I was sizing 
him up, wondering how he could be content 
with an instructor's job while the war is in pro- 
gress. He said: "I've had five hundred hours 
over the lines. You don't know what that 
means, not yet. I'm no good any more. It's 
strain. Let me give you some advice. Save 
your nervous energy. You will need all you 
have and more. Above everything else, don't 
think at the front. The best pilot is the best 
machine." 

Dunham was talking about patrols. 

"Two a day of two hours each. Occasionally 
you will have six hours' flying, but almost never 
more than that." 

"What about voluntary patrols?" Drew 
asked. "I don't suppose there is any objection, 
is there?" 

Miller pounded Dunham on the back, sing- 
ing, " Hi-doo-dedoo-dum-di. What did I tell 
you! Do I win?" Then he explained. "We 
asked the same question when we came out, 
and every other new pilot before us. This vol- 
untary patrol business is a kind of standing 
joke. You think, now, that four hours a day 

in 



High Adventure 

over the lines is a light programme. For the 
iirst month or so you will go out on your own 
between times. After that, no. Of course, 
when they call for a voluntary patrol for some 
necessary piece of work, you will volunteer out 
of a sense of duty. As I say, you may do as 
much flying as you like. But wait. After a 
month, or we '11 give you six weeks, that will be 
no more than you have to do." 

We were not at all convinced. 

"What do you do with the rest of your 
time?" 

"Sleep," said Dunham. "Read a good deal. 
Play some poker or bridge. Walk. But sleep is 
the chief amusement. Eight hours used to be 
enough for me. Now I can do with ten or 
twelve." 

Drew said: "That's all rot. You fellows are 
having it too soft. They ought to put you on 
the school regime again." 

"Let 'em talk, Dunham. They know. J. B. 
says it's laziness. Let it go at that. Well, 
take it from me, it's contagious. You'll soon 
be victims." 

I dropped out of the conversation in order to 
112 



Our First Patrol 

look around me. Drew did all of the question- 
ing, and thanks to his interest, I got many hints 
about our work which came back opportunely, 
afterward. 

"Think down to the gunners. That will help 
a lot. It 's a game after that : your skill against 
theirs. I could n't do it at first, and shell fire 
seemed absolutely damnable." 

"And you want to remember that a chasse 
machine is almost never brought down by 
anti-aircraft fire. You are too fast for them. 
You can fool 'em in a thousand ways." 

"I had been flying for two weeks before I 
saw a Boche. They are not scarce on this sec- 
tor, don't worry. I simply could n't see them. 
The others would have scraps. I spent most of 
my time trying to keep track of them." 

"Take my tip, J. B., don't be too anxious to 
mix it with the first German you see, because 
very likely he will be a Frenchman, and if he 
is n't, if he is a good Hun pilot, you '11 simply 
be meat for him — at first, I mean." 

"They say that all the Boche aviators on 
this front have had several months' experience 
in Russia or the Balkans. They train them 

ii3 



High Adventure 



there before they send them to the Western 
Front." 

"Your best chance of being brought down 
will come in the first two weeks." 

"That's comforting." 

"No, sans blague. Honestly, you'll be al- 
most helpless. You don't see anything, and 
you don't know what it is that you do see. 
Here 's an example. On one of my first sorties I 
happened to look over my shoulder and I saw 
five or six Germans in the most beautiful align- 
ment. And they were all slanting up to dive on 
me. I was scared out of my life : went down full 
motor, then cut and fell into a vrille. Came out 
of that and had another look. There they were 
in the same position, only farther away. I 
did n't tumble even then, except farther down. 
Next time I looked, the five Boches, or six, 
whichever it was, had all been raveled out by 
the wind. Eclats d'obus." 

"You may have heard about Franklin's 
Boche. He got it during his first combat. He 
did n't know that there was a German in the 
sky, until he saw the tracer bullets. Then the 
machine passed him about thirty metres away. 

114 



Our First Patrol 

And he kept going down : may have had motor 
trouble. Franklin said that he had never had 
such a shock in his life. He dived after him, 
spraying all space with his Vickers, and he got 
him!" 

"That all depends on the man. In chasse, 
unless you are sent out on a definite mission, 
protecting photographic machines or avions de 
bombardement, you are absolutely on your 
own. Your job is to patrol the lines. If a man 
is built that way, he can loaf on the job. He 
need never have a fight. At two hundred kilo- 
metres an hour, it won't take him very long to 
get out of danger. He stays out his two hours 
and comes in with some framed-up tale to ac- 
count for his disappearance: 'Got lost. Went 
off by himself into Germany. Had motor 
trouble; gun jammed, and went back to arm it.' 
He may even spray a few bullets toward Ger- 
many and call it a combat. Oh, he can find 
plenty of excuses, and he can get away with 
them." 

"That's spreading it, Dunham. What about 
Huston? is he getting away with it?" 

"Now, don't let's get personal. Very likely 
US 



High Adventure 

Huston can't help it. Anyway, it is a matter of 
temperament mostly." 

"Temperament, hell! There's Van, for ex- 
ample. I happen to know that he has to take 
himself by his bootlaces every time he crosses 
into Germany. But he sticks it. He has never 
played a yellow trick. I hand it to him for 
pluck above every other man in the squadron." 

"What about Talbott and Barry?" 

"Lord! They haven't any nerves. It's no 
job for them to do their work well." 

This conversation continued during the rest 
of the journey. The life of a military pilot offers 
exceptional opportunities for research in the 
matter of personal bravery. Dunham and Mil- 
ler agreed that it is a varying quality. Some- 
times one is really without fear; at others only 
a sense of shame prevents one from making a 
very sad display. 

"Huston is no worse than some of the rest of 
us, only he has n't a sense of shame." 

"Well, he has the courage to be a coward, 
and that is more than you have, son, or I either." 

Our fellow pilots of the Lafayette Corps were 
lounging outside the barracks on our arrival. 

116 



Our First Patrol 

They gave us a welcome which did much to re- 
move our feelings of strangeness ; but we knew 
that they were only mildly interested in the 
news from the schools and were glad when they 
let us drop into the background of conversa- 
tion. By a happy chance mention was made of 
a recent newspaper article of some of the ex- 
ploits of the Escadrille, written evidently by a 
very imaginative journalist; and from this the 
talk passed to the reputation of the Squadron in 
America, and the almost fabulous deeds cred- 
ited to it by some newspaper correspondents. 
One pilot said that he had kept record of the 
number of German machines actually reported 
as having been brought down by members of 
the Corps. I don't remember the number he 
gave, but it was an astonishing total. The daily 
average was so high, that, granting it to be cor- 
rect, America might safely have abandoned her 
far-reaching aerial programme. Long before 
her first pursuit squadron could be ready for 
service, the last of the imperial German air- 
fleet would, to quote from the article, have 
"crashed in smouldering ruin on the war- 
devastated plains of northern France." 

117 



High Adventure 

In this connection I can't forbear quoting 
from another, one of the brightest pages in the 
journalistic history of the legendary Escadrille 
Lafayette. It is an account of a sortie said to 
have taken place on the receipt of news of 
America's declaration of war. 

"Uncle Sam is with us, boys! Come on! Let's 
get those fellows!" These were the stirring words 
of Captain Georges Thenault, the valiant leader 
of the Escadrille Lafayette, upon the morning 
when news was received that the United States 
of America had declared war upon the rulers of 
Potsdam. For the first time in history, the Stars 
and Stripes of Old Glory were flung to the breeze 
over the camp, in France, of American fighting 
men. Inspired by the sight, and spurred to in- 
stant action by the ringing call of their French 
captain, this band of aviators from the U.S.A. 
sprang into their trim little biplanes. There was 
a deafening roar of motors, and soon the last air- 
man had disappeared in the smoky haze which 
hung over the distant battle-lines. 

We cannot follow them on that journey. We 
cannot see them as they mount higher and higher 
into the morning sky, on their way to meet their 
prey. But we may await their return. We may 
watch them as they descend to their flying-field, 
dropping down to earth, one by one. We may 
learn, then, of their adventures on that flight of 

118 



Our First Patrol 

death: how, far back of the German lines, they 
encountered a formidable battle-squadron of the 
enemy, vastly superior to their own in numbers. 
Heedless of the risk they swooped down upon 

their foe. Lieutenant A was attacked by 

four enemy planes at the same time. One he sent 
hurtling to the ground fifteen thousand feet be- 
low. He caused a second to retire disabled. Ser- 
geant B accounted for another in a running 

fight which lasted for more than a quarter of an 

hour. Adjutant C , although his biplane was 

riddled with bullets, succeeded, by a clever ruse, 
in decoying two pursuers, bent on his destruc- 
tion, to the vicinity of a cloud where several of 
his comrades were lying in wait for further vic- 
tims. A moment later both Germans were seen 
to fall earthward, spinning like leaves in that last 
terrible dive of death. "These boys are Yankee 
aviators. They form the vanguard of America's 
aerial forces. We need thousands of others just 
like them," etc. 

Stories of this kind have, without doubt, a 
certain imaginative appeal. J. B. and I had 
often read them, never wholly credulous, of 
course, but with feelings of uneasiness. Dis- 
counting them by more than half, we still had 
serious doubts of our ability to measure up to 
the standard set by our fellow Americans who 
had preceded us on active service. We were in 

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High Adventure 

part reassured during our first afternoon at the 
front. If these men were the demons on wings 
of the newspapers, they took great pains to give 
us a different impression. 

Many of the questions which had long been 
accumulating in our minds got themselves an- 
swered during the next few days, while we were 
waiting for machines. We knew, in a general 
way, what the nature of our work would be. 
We knew that the Escadrille Lafayette was one 
of four pursuit squadrons occupying hangars on 
the same field, and that, together, these formed 
what is called a groupe de combat, with a definite 
sector of front to cover. We had been told that 
combat pilots are "the police of the air," whose 
duty it is to patrol the lines, harass the enemy, 
attacking whenever possible, thus giving pro- 
tection to their own corps-cTarmee aircraft — 
which are only incidentally fighting machines 
— in their work of reconnaissance, photogra- 
phy, artillery direction, and the like. But we 
did not know how this general theory of com- 
bat is given practical application. When I 
think of the depths of our ignorance, to be filled 

120 



Our First Patrol 

in, day by day, with a little additional experi- 
ence; of our self-confidence, despite warnings; 
of our willingness to leave so much for our 
"godfather" Chance to decide, it is with feel- 
ings nearly akin to awe. We awaited our first 
patrol almost ready to believe that it would be 
our first victorious combat. We had no reali- 
zation of the conditions under which aerial 
battles are fought. Given good-will, average 
ability, and the opportunity, we believed that 
the results must be decisive, one way or the 
other. 

Much of our enforced leisure was spent at the 
bureau of the group, where the pilots gathered 
after each sortie to make out their reports, 
There we heard accounts of exciting combats, 
of victories and narrow escapes, which sounded 
like impossible fictions. A few of them may 
have been, but not many. They were told sim- 
ply, briefly, as a part of the day's work, by men 
who no longer thought of their adventures as 
being either very remarkable or very interest- 
ing. What, I thought, will seem interesting or 
remarkable to them after the war, after such a 
life as this? Once an American gave me a hint: 

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High Adventure 

" I 'm going to apply for a job as attendant in a 
natural-history museum." 

Only a few minutes before, these men had 
been taking part in aerial battles, attacking in- 
fantry in trenches, or enemy transport on roads 
fifteen or twenty kilometres away. And while 
they were talking of these things the drone of 
motors overhead announced the departure of 
other patrols to battle-lines which were only 
five minutes distant by the route of the air. 
For when weather permitted there was an inter- 
lapping series of patrols flying over the sector 
from daylight till dark. The number of these, 
and the number of avions in each patrol, varied 
as circumstances demanded. 

On one wall of the bureau hung a large-scale 
map of the sector, which we examined square 
by square with that delight which only the 
study of maps can give. Trench-systems, both 
French and German, were outlined upon it in 
minute detail. It contained other features of a 
very interesting nature. On another wall there 
was a yet larger map, made of aeroplane photo- 
graphs taken at a uniform altitude and so 
pieced together that the whole was a complete 

122 



Our First Patrol 

picture of our sector of front. We spent hours 
over this one. Every trench, every shell hole, 
every splintered tree or fragment of farmhouse 
wall stood out clearly. We could identify 
machine-gun posts and battery positions. We 
could see at a glance the result of months of 
fighting; how terribly men had suffered under 
a rain of high explosives at this point, how 
lightly they had escaped at another; and so we 
could follow, with a certain degree of accuracy, 
what must have been the infantry actions at 
various parts of the line. 

The history of these trench campaigns will 
have a forbidding interest to the student of the 
future; for, as he reads of the battles on the 
Aisne, the Somme, of Verdun and Flanders, he 
will have spread out before him photographs of 
the battlefields themselves, just as they were at 
different phases of the struggle. With a series 
of these pictorial records, men will be able to 
find the trenches from which their fathers or 
grandfathers scrambled with their regiments to 
the attack, the wire entanglements which held 
up the advance at one point, the shell holes 
where they lay under machine-gun fire. And 

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High Adventure 

often they will see the men themselves as they 
advanced through the barrage fire, the sun 
glinting on their helmets. It will be a fascinat- 
ing study, in a ghastly way; and while such 
records exist, the outward meanings, at least, 
of modern warfare will not be forgotten. 

Tiffin, the messroom steward, was standing 
by my cot with a lighted candle in his hand. 
The furrows in his kindly old face were out- 
lined in shadow. His bald head gleamed like 
the bottom of a yellow bowl. He said, "Beau 
temps, monsieur," put the candle on my table, 
and went out, closing the door softly. I looked 
at the window square, which was covered with 
oiled cloth for want of glass. It was a black 
patch showing not a glimmer of light. 

The other pilots were gathering in the mess- 
room, where a fire was going. Some one started 
the phonograph. Fritz Kreisler was playing the 
" Chansons sans Paroles." This was followed by 
a song, "Oh, movin' man, don't take ma baby 
grand." It was a strange combination, and to 
hear them, at that hour of the morning, before 
going out for a first sortie over the lines, gave 

124 



Our First Patrol 

me a "mixed-up" feeling, which it was impos- 
sible to analyze. 

Two patrols were to leave the field at the 
same time, one to cover the sector at an altitude 
of from two thousand to three thousand metres, 
the other, thirty-five hundred to five thousand 
metres. J. B. and I were on high patrol. Owing 
to our inexperience, it was to be a purely defen- 
sive one between our observation balloons and 
the lines. We had still many questions to ask, 
but having been so persistently inquisitive for 
three days running, we thought it best to wait 
for Talbott, who was leading our patrol, to vol- 
unteer his instructions. 

He went to the door to look at the weather. 
There were clouds at about three thousand me- 
tres, but the stars were shining through gaps in 
them. On the horizon, in the direction of the 
lines, there was a broad belt of blue sky. The 
wind was blowing into Germany. He came 
back yawning. "We'll go up — ho, hum!" — ■ 
tremendous yawn — "through a hole before we 
reach the river. It 's going to be clear presently, 
so the higher we go the better." 

The others yawned sympathetically. 
125 



High Adventure 



"I don't feel very pugnastic this morn- 
ing." 

"It's a crime to send men out at this time of 
day — night, rather." 

More yawns of assent, of protest. J. B. and I 
were the only ones fully awake. We had fin- 
ished our chocolate and were watching the 
clock uneasily, afraid that we should be late 
getting started. Ten minutes before patrol 
time we went out to the field. The canvas 
hangars billowed and flapped, and the wooden 
supports creaked with the quiet sound made 
by ships at sea. And there was almost the peace 
of the sea there, intensified, if anything, by the 
distant rumble of heavy cannonading. 

Our Spad biplanes were drawn up in two long 
rows, outside the hangars. They were in exact 
alignment, wing to wing. Some of them were 
clean and new, others discolored with smoke 
and oil; among these latter were the ones which 
J. B. and I were to fly. Being new pilots we 
were given used machines to begin with, and 
ours had already seen much service. Fuselage 
and wings had many patches over the scars of 
old battles, but new motors had been installed, 

126 



Our First Patrol 

the bodies overhauled, and they were ready for 
further adventures. 

It mattered little to us that they were old. 
They were to carry us out to our first air bat- 
tles ; they were the first avions which we could 
call our own, and we loved them in an almost 
personal way. Each machine had an Indian 
head, the symbol of the Lafayette Corps, 
painted on the sides of the fuselage. In addition, 
it bore the personal mark of its pilot, — a trian- 
gle, a diamond, a straight band, or an initial, — 
painted large so that it could be easily seen and 
recognized in the air. 

The mechanicians were getting the motors 
en route, arming the machine guns, and giving 
a final polish to the glass of the wind -shields. 
In a moment every machine was turning over 
ralenti, with the purring sound of powerful en- 
gines which gives a voice to one's feeling of ex- 
citement just before patrol time. There was 
no more yawning, no languid movement. 

Rodman was buttoning himself into a com- 
bination suit which appeared to add another 
six inches to his six feet two. Barry, who was 
leading the low patrol, wore a woolen helmet 

127 



High Adventure 



which left only his eyes uncovered. I had not 
before noticed how they blazed and snapped. 
All his energy seemed to be concentrated in 
them. Porter wore a leather face-mask, with 
a lozenge-shaped breathing-hole, and slanted 
openings covered with yellow glass for eyes. 
He was the most fiendish-looking demon of 
them all. I was glad to turn from him to the 
Duke, who wore a passe-montagne of white silk 
which fitted him like a bonnet. As he sat in his 
machine, adjusting his goggles, he might have 
passed for a dear old lady preparing to read a 
chapter from the Book of Daniel. The fur of 
Dunham's helmet had frayed out, so that it 
fitted around the sides of his face and under the 
chin like a beard, the kind worn by old-fash- 
ioned sailors. 

The strain of waiting patiently for the start 
was trying. The sudden transformation of a 
group of typical-looking Americans into mon-. 
sters and devotional old ladies gave a moment 
of diversion which helped to relieve it. 

I heard Talbott shouting his parting instruc- 
tions and remembered that I did not know the 
rendezvous. I was already strapped in my 

128 



Our First Patrol 

machine and was about to loosen the fastenings, 
when he came over and climbed on the step of 
the car. 

"Rendezvous two thousand over field!" he 
yelled. 

I nodded. 

"Know me — Big T — wings — fuselage. I'll 

— turning right. You and others left. When 

— see me start — lines, fall in behind — left. 
Remember stick close — patrol. If — get lost, 
better — home. Compass southwest. Look care- 
fully — landmarks going out. Got — straight ? " 

I nodded again to show that I understood. 
Machines of both patrols were rolling across 
the field, a mechanician running along beside 
each one. I joined the long line, and taxied 
over to the starting-point, where the captain 
was superintending the send-off, and turned 
into the wind in my turn. As though conscious 
of his critical eye, my old veteran Spad lifted 
its tail and gathered flying speed with all the 
vigor of its youth, and we were soon high above 
the hangars, climbing to the rendezvous. 

When we had all assembled, Talbott headed 
northeast, the rest of us falling into our places 

129 



High Adventure 

behind him. Then I found that, despite the 
new motor, my machine was not a rapid climber. 
Talbott noticed this and kept me well in 
the group, he and the others losing height in 
renversements and retournements, diving under 
me and climbing up again. It was fascinating 
to watch them doing stunts, to observe the 
constant changing of positions. Sometimes we 
seemed, all of us, to be hanging motionless, 
then rising and falling like small boats riding a 
heavy swell. Another glance would show one of 
them suspended bottom up, falling sidewise, 
tipped vertically on a wing, standing on its tail, 
as though being blown about by the wind, out 
of all control. It is only in the air, when moving 
with them, that one can really appreciate the 
variety and grace of movement of a flock of 
high-powered avions de chasse. 

I was close to Talbott as we reached the cloud- 
bank. I saw him in dim silhouette as the mist, 
sunlight-filtered, closed around us. Emerging 
into the clear, fine air above it, we might have 
been looking at early morning from the casement 

" opening on the foam 
Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn." 

130 



Our First Patrol 

The sun was just rising, and the floor of cloud 
glowed with delicate shades of rose and ame- 
thyst and gold. I saw the others rising through 
it at widely scattered points. It was a glorious 
sight. 

Then, forming up and turning northward 
again, just as we passed over the receding edge 
of the cloud-bank, I saw the lines. It was still 
dusk on the ground and my first view was that 
of thousands of winking lights, the flashes of 
guns and of bursting shells. At that time the 
Germans were making trials of the French 
positions along the Chemin des Dames, and 
the artillery fire was unusually heavy. 

The lights soon faded and the long, winding 
battle-front emerged from the shadow, a broad 
strip of desert land through a fair, green coun- 
try. We turned westward along the sector, 
several kilometres within the French lines, for 
J. B. and I were to have a general view of it all 
before we crossed to the other side. The fort of 
Malmaison was a minute square, not as large 
as a postage-stamp. With thumb and forefinger 
I could have spanned the distance between Sois- 
sons and Laon. Clouds of smoke were rising 

131 



High Adventure 



from Allemant to Craonne, and these were con- 
stantly added to by infinitesimal puffs in black 
and white. I knew that shells of enormous cali- 
bre were wrecking trenches, blasting out huge 
craters; and yet not a sound, not the faintest 
reverberation of a gun. Here was a sight almost 
to make one laugh at man's idea of the impor- 
tance of his pygmy wars. 

f But the Olympian mood is a fleeting one. I 
think of Paradis rising on one elbow out of the 
slime where he and his comrades were lying, 
waving his hand toward the wide, unspeakable 
landscape. 

"What are we, we chaps? And what's all 
this here? Nothing at all. All we can see is only 
a speck. When one speaks of the whole war, 
it's as if you said nothing at all— the words 
are strangled. We 're here, and we look at it like 
blind men." 

To look down from a height of more than 
two miles, on an endless panorama of suffering 
and horror, is to have the sense of one's little- 
ness even more painfully quickened. The best 
that the airman can do is to repeat, "We're 
here, and we look at it like blind men." 

132 




THE EFFECT OF DESTRUCTIVE: 

A village before, dui 




-L-FIRE AS SEEN FROM THE AIR 
id after a bombardment 



Our First Patrol 

We passed on to the point where the line 
bends northward, then turned back. I tried to 
concentrate my attention on the work of iden- 
tifying landmarks. It was useless. One might 
as well attempt to study Latin grammar at his 
first visit to the Grand Canon. My thoughts 
went wool-gathering. Looking up suddenly, I 
found that I was alone. 

To the new pilot the sudden appearance or 
disappearance of other avions is a weird thing. 
He turns his head for a moment. When he 
looks again, his patrol has vanished. Combats 
are matters of a few seconds' duration, rarely 
of more than two or three minutes. The oppor- 
tunity for attack comes almost with the swift- 
ness of thought and has passed as quickly. 
Looking behind me, I was in time to see one 
machine tip and dive. Then it, too, vanished 
as though it had melted into the air. Shutting 
my motor, I started down, swiftly, I thought; 
but I had not yet learned to fall vertically, and 
the others — I can say almost with truth — 
were miles below me. I passed long streamers 
of white smoke, crossing and recrossing in the 
air. I knew the meaning of these, machine-gun 

133 



High Adventure 

tracer bullets. The delicately penciled lines had 
not yet frayed out in the wind. I went on down 
in a steep spiral, guiding myself by them, and 
seeing nothing. At the point where they ended, 
I re-dressed and put on my motor. My altime- 
ter registered two thousand metres. By a curi- 
ous chance, while searching the empty sky, I 
saw a live shell passing through the air. It was 
just at the second when it reached the top of 
its trajectory and started to fall. "Lord!" I 
thought, "I have seen a shell, and yet I can't 
find my patrol!" 

While coming down I had given no attention 
to my direction. I had lost twenty-five hun- 
dred metres in height. The trenches were now 
plainly visible, and the brown strip of sterile 
country where they lay was vastly broader. 
Several times I felt the concussion of shell ex- 
plosions, my machine being lifted and then 
dropped gently with an uneasy motion. Con- 
stantly searching the air, I gave no thought to 
my position with reference to the lines, nor to 
the possibility of anti-aircraft lire. Talbott had 
said: "Never fly in a straight line for more 
than fifteen seconds . Keep changing your direc- 

134 



Our First Patrol 

tion constantly, but be careful not to fly in a 
regularly irregular fashion. The German gun- 
ners may let you alone at first, hoping that you 
will become careless, or they may be plotting 
out your style of flight. Then they make their 
calculations and they let you have it. If you 
have been careless, they'll put 'em so close, 
there'll be no question about the kind of a 
scare you will have." 

There was n't in my case. I was looking for 
my patrol to the exclusion of thought of any- 
thing else. The first shell burst so close that 
I lost control of my machine for a moment. 
Three others followed, two in front, and one 
behind, which I believed had wrecked my tail. 
They burst with a terrific rending sound in 
clouds of coal-black smoke. A few days before 
I had been watching without emotion the 
bombardment of a German plane. I had seen 
it twisting and turning through the eclate- 
ments, and had heard the shells popping faintly, 
with a sound like the bursting of seed-pods in 
the sun. 

My feeling was not that of fear, exactly. It 
was more like despair. Every airman must 

135 



High Adventure 



have known it at one time or another, a sudden 
overwhelming realization of the pitilessness of 
the forces which men let loose in war. In that 
moment one does n't remember that men have 
loosed them. He is alone, and he sees the face 
of an utterly evil thing. Miller's advice was, 
"Think down to the gunners"; but this is im- 
possible at first. Once a French captain told 
me that he talked to the shells. "I say, 'Bon- 
jour, mon vieux! Tiens! Comment 9a va, toi! 
Ah, non! je suis presse! ' or something like that. 
It amuses one." 

This need of some means of humanizing shell 
fire is common. Aviators know little of modern 
warfare as it touches the infantryman; but in 
one respect, at least, they are less fortunate. 
They miss the human companionship which 
helps a little to mask its ugliness. 

However, it is seldom that one is quite alone, 
without the sight of friendly planes near at 
hand, and there is a language of signs which, 
in a way, fills this need. One may "waggle his 
flippers," or "flap his wings," to use the com- 
mon expressions, and thus communicate with 
his comrades. Unfortunately for my ease of 

136 




THE MAZE OF TRAFFIC ROUTJJ 
The first, second, and third positions sj 




THE REAR OF THE TRENCHES 
covering line for artillery are indicated 



Our First Patrol 

mind, there were no comrades present with 
whom I could have conversed in this way. 
Miller was within five hundred metres and saw 
me all the time, although I did n't know this 
until later. 

Talbott's instructions were, " If you get lost, 
go home" — somewhat ambiguous. I knew 
that my course to the aerodrome was south- 
west. At any rate, by flying in that direction I 
was certain to land in France. But with Ger- 
man gunners so keen on the baptism-of-fire 
business, I had been turning in every direction, 
and the floating disk of my compass was re- 
volving first to the right, then to the left. In 
order to let it settle, I should have to fly straight 
for some fixed point for at least half a minute. 
Under the circumstances I was not willing to do 
this. A compass which would point north im- 
mediately and always would be a heaven-sent 
blessing to the inexperienced pilot during his 
first few weeks at the front. Mine was saying 
North — northwest — west — southwest — 
south — southeast — east — and after a mo- 
ment of hesitation reading off the points in the 
reverse order. The wind was blowing into 

137 



High Adventure 

Germany, and unconsciously, in trying to find 
a way out of the eclatements, I was getting far- 
ther and farther away from home and coming 
within range of additional batteries of hostile 
anti-aircraft guns. 

I might have landed at Karlsruhe or Cologne, 
had it not been for Miller. My love for con- 
centric circles of red, white, and blue dates 
from the moment when I saw the French 
cocarde on his Spad. 

"And if I had been a Hun !" he said, when we 
landed at the aerodome. "Oh, man! you were 
fruit salad ! Fruit salad, I tell you ! I could have 
speared you with my eyes shut." 

I resented the implication of defenselessness. 
I said that I was keeping my eyes open, and if 
he had been a Hun, the fruit salad might not 
have been so palatable as it looked. 

"Tell me this: Did you see me?" 

I thought for a moment, and then said, "Yes." 

"When?" 

"When you passed over my head." 

"And twenty seconds before that you would 
have been a sieve, if either of us had been a 
Boche." 

138 



Our First Patrol 

I yielded the point to save further argument. 

He had come swooping down fairly suddenly. 
When I saw him making his way so saucily 
among the eclatements I felt my confidence re- 
turning in increasing waves. I began to use 
my head, and found that it was possible to 
make the German gunners guess badly. There 
was no menace in the sound of shells barking 
at a distance, and we were soon clear of all of 
them. 

J. B. took me aside the moment I landed. 
He had one of his fur boots in his hand and 
was wearing the other. He had also lighted the 
cork end of his cigarette. To one acquainted 
with his magisterial orderliness of mind and 
habit, these signs were eloquent. 

"Now, keep this quiet!" he said. "I don't 
want the others to know it, but I Ve just had 
the adventure of my life. I attacked a Ger- 
man. Great Scott! what an opportunity! and 
I bungled it through being too eager!" 

"When was this?" 

"Just after the others dove. You remem- 
ber—" 

I told him, briefly, of my experience, adding, 
139 



High Adventure 



"And I did n't know there was a German in 
sight until I saw the smoke of the tracer 
bullets." 

"Neither did I, only I did n't see even the 
smoke." 

This cheered me immensely. "What! you 
didn't—" 

"No. I saw nothing but sky where the others 
had disappeared. I was looking for them when 
I saw the German. He was about four hundred 
metres below me. He could n't have seen me, 
I think, because he kept straight on. I dove, 
but did n't open fire until I could have a nearer 
view of his black crosses. I wanted to be sure. 
I had no idea that I was going so much faster. 
The first thing I knew I was right on him. Had 
to pull back on my stick to keep from crashing 
into him. Up I went and fell into a nose-dive. 
When I came out of it there was no sign of the 
German, and I had n't fired a shot!" 

"Did you come home alone?" 

"No; I had the luck to meet the others just 
afterward. Now, not a word of this to any 
one!" 

But there was no need for secrecy. The near 
140 



Our First Patrol 

combat had been seen by both Talbott and 
Porter. At luncheon we both came in for our 
share of ragging. 

"You should have seen them following us 
down!" said Porter; "like two old rheumatics 
going into the subway. We saw them both 
when we were taking height again. The scrap 
was all over hours before, and they were still a 
thousand metres away." 

"You want to dive vertically. Need n't 
worry about your old 'bus. She'll stand it." 

"Well, the Lord has certainly protected the 
innocent to-day!" 

"One of them was wandering off into Ger- 
many. Bill had to waggle Miller to page him." 

"And there was Drew, going down on that 
biplane we were chasing. I've been trying to 
think of one wrong thing he might have done 
which he did n't do. First he dove with the sun 
in his face, when he might have had it at his 
back. Then he came all the way in full view, 
instead of getting under his tail. Good thing 
the mitrailleur was firing at us. After that, 
when he had the chance of a lifetime, he fell 
into a vrille and scared the life out of the rest 

141 



High Adventure 

of us. I thought the gunner had turned on 
him. And while we were following him down 
to see where he was going to splash, the Boche 
got away." 

All this happened months ago, but every 
trifling incident connected with our first patrol 
is still fresh in mind. And twenty years from 
now, if I chance to hear the "Chansons sans 
Paroles," or if I hum to myself a few bars of a 
ballad, then sure to be long forgotten by the 
world at large, "Oh, movin' man, don't take 
ma baby grand ! " I shall have only to close my 
eyes, and wait passively. First Tiffin will come 
with the lighted candle: "Beau temps, mon- 
sieur." I shall hear Talbott shouting, "Ren- 
dezvous two thousand over field. If — get lost 
— better — home." J. B. will rush up smoking 
the cork end of a cigarette. "I've just had the 
adventure of my life!" And Miller, sitting on 
an essence-case, will have lost none of his old 
conviction. "Oh, man! you were fruit salad! 
Fruit salad, I tell you! I could have speared 
you with my eyes shut!" 

And in those days, happily still far off, there 
142 



Our First Patrol 

will be many another old gray-beard with such 
memories; unless they are all to wear out their 
days uselessly regretting that they are no longer 
young, there must be clubs where they may 
exchange reminiscences. These need not be 
pretentious affairs. Let there be a strong odor 
of burnt castor oil and gasoline as you enter the 
door; a wide view from the verandas of earth 
and sky; maps on the walls; arid on the roof 
a canvas "pantaloon-leg" to catch the wind. 
Nothing else matters very much. There they 
will be as happy as any old airman can expect 
to be, arguing about the winds and disputing 
one another's judgment about the height of 
the clouds. 

If you say to one of them, "Tell us something 
about the Great War," as likely as not he will 
tell you a pleasant story enough. And the pity 
of it will be that, hearing the tale, a young man 
will long for another war. Then you must say 
to him, "But what about the shell fire? Tell 
us something of machines falling in flames." 
Then, if he is an honest old airman whose mem- 
ory is still unimpaired, the young one who has 
been listening will have sober second thoughts. 



VI 

A BALLOON ATTACK 

"I'm looking for two balloonatics," said Tal- 
bott, as he came into the messroom; "and I 
think I Ve found them." 

Percy, Talbott's orderly, Tiffin the steward, 
Drew, and I were the only occupants of the 
room. Percy is an old legionnaire, crippled with 
rheumatism. His active service days are over. 
Tiffin's working hours are filled with number- 
less duties. He makes the beds, and serves 
food from three to five times daily to members 
of the Escadrille Lafayette. These two being 
eliminated, the identity of the balloonatics was 
plain. 

"The orders have just come," Talbott added, 
"and I decided that the first men I met after 
leaving the bureau would be balloonatics. Vir- 
tue has gone into both of you. Now, if you can 
make fire come out of a Boche sausage, you will 
have done all that is required. Listen. This is 
interesting. The orders are in French, but I 
will translate as I read : — 

144 



A Balloon Attack 

On the umteenth day of June, the escadrilles 
of Groupe de Combat Blank [that's ours] will 
cooperate in an attack on the German observa- 
tion balloons along the sector extending from X 
to Y. The patrols to be furnished are: (i) two 
patrols of protection, of five avions each, by the 
escadrilles Spa. 87 and Spa. 12; (2) four patrols 
of attack, of three avions each, by the escadrilles 
Spa. 124 [that's us], Spa. 93, Spa. 10, and Spa. 12. 

The attack will be organized as follows : on the 
day set, weather permitting, the two patrols of 
protection will leave the field at 10.30 a.m. The 
patrol of Spa. 87 will rendezvous over the village 

of N . The patrol of protection of Spa. 12 

will rendezvous over the village of C . At 

10.45, precisely, they will start for the lines, cross- 
ing at an altitude of thirty-five hundred metres. 
The patrol furnished by Spa. 87 will guard the 

sector from X to T, between the town of O 

and the two enemy balloons on that sector. 
The patrol furnished by Spa. 12 will guard the 
sector from T to Y, between the railway line 
and the two enemy balloons on that sector. Im- 
mediately after the attack has been made, these 
formations will return to the aerodrome. 

At 10.40 a.m. the four patrols of attack will 
leave the field, and will rendezvous as follows. 
[Here followed the directions.] At 10.55, P re " 
cisely, they will start for the lines, crossing at an 
approximate altitude of sixteen hundred metres, 
each patrol making in a direct line for the balloon 

H5 



High Adventure 

assigned to it. Numbers I and 2 of each of these 
patrols will carry rockets. Number 3 will fly im- 
mediately above them, offering further protection 
in case of attack by enemy aircraft. Number 1 
of each patrol will first attack the balloon. If he 
fails, number 2 will attack. If number 1 is success- 
ful, number 2 will then attack the observers in 
their parachutes. If number 1 fails, and number 
2 is successful, number 3 will attack the observ- 
ers. The patrol will then proceed to the aero- 
drome by the shortest route. 

Squadron commanders will make a return be- 
fore noon to-day, of the names of pilots desig- 
nated by them for their respective patrols. 

In case of unfavorable weather, squadron com- 
manders will be informed of the date to which the 
attack has been postponed. 

Pilots designated as numbers 1 and 2 of the 
patrols of attack will be relieved from the usual 
patrol duty from this date. They will employ 
their time at rocket shooting. A target will be in 
place on the east side of the field from 1.30 p.m. 
to-day. 

"Are there any remarks?" said Talbott, as 
if he had been reading the minutes at a debat- 
ing-club meeting. 

"Yes," said J. B. "When is the umteenth 
of June?" 

"Ah, mon vieux! that's the question. The 
146 



A Balloon Attack 

commandant knows, and he is n't telling. Any- 
other little thing?" 

I suggested that we would like to know which 
of us was to be number i. 

"That's right. Drew, how would you like 
to be the first rocketeer?" 

"I've no objection," said J. B., grinning as 
if the frenzy of balloonaticking had already 
got into his blood. 

"Right! that's settled. I '11 see your mecha- 
nicians about fitting your machines for rockets. 
You can begin practice this afternoon." 

Percy had been listening with interest to the 
conversation. 

"You got some nice job, you boys. But if you 
bring him down, there will be a lot of chuck- 
ling in the trenches. You won't hear it, but 
they will all be saying, ' Bravo ! Epatant ! ' I Ve 
been there. I've seen it and I know. Does 
'em all good to see a sausage brought down. 
6 There's another one of their eyes knocked 
out,' they say." 

"Percy is right," said J. B. as we were walk- 
ing down the road. "Destroying a balloon is 
not a great achievement in itself. Of course, 

147 



High Adventure 

it's so much equipment gone, so much expense 
added to the German war-budget. That is 
something. But the effect on the infantrymen 
is the important thing. Boche soldiers, thou- 
sands of them, will see one of their balloons 
coming down in flame. They will be saying, 
' Where are our airmen?' like those old poilus 
we met at the station when we first came out. 
It's bound to influence morale. Now let's see. 
The balloon, we will say, is at sixteen hundred 
metres. At that height it can be seen by men 
on the ground within a radius of — " and so 
forth and so on. 

We figured it out approximately, estimating 
the numbers of soldiers, of all branches of serv- 
ice, who would witness the sight. Multiplying 
this number by four, our conclusion was that, 
as a result of the expedition, the length of the 
war and its outcome might very possibly be 
affected. At any rate, there would be such an 
ebbing of German morale, and such a flooding 
of French, that the way would be opened to a 
decisive victory on that front. 

But supposing we should miss our sausage? 
J. B. grew thoughtful. 

148 




FARMAN RECONNAISSANCE AVION 




FARMAN BIPLANES ARMED WITH ROCKETS 
FOR BALLOON ATTACK 

(Early days of the war) 



A Balloon Attack 

"Have another look at the orders. I don't 
remember what the instructions were in case 
we both fail." 

I read, "If number I fails and number 2 is 
successful, number 3 will attack the observers. 
The patrol will then proceed to the aerodrome 
by the shortest route." 

This was plain enough. Allowance could 
be made for one failure, but two — the possi- 
bility had not even been considered. 

"By the shortest route." There was a piece 
of sly humor for you. It may have been un- 
conscious, but we preferred to believe that the 
commandant had chuckled as he dictated it. 
A sort of afterthought, as much as to say to his 
pilots, "Well, you young bucks, you would-be 
airmen: thought it would be all sport, eh? 
You might have known. It's your own fault. 
Now go out and attack those balloons. It's 
possible that you may have a scrap or two on 
your hands while you are at it. Oh, yes, by 
the way, coming home, you'll be down pretty 
low. Every Boche machine in the air will have 
you at a disadvantage. Better return by the 
shortest route." 

149 



High Adventure 

One feature of the programme did not ap- 
peal to us greatly, and this was the attack to be 
made on the observers when they had jumped 
with their parachutes. It seemed as near the 
border line between legitimate warfare and cold- 
blooded murder as anything could well be. 

"You are armed with a machine-gun. He 
may have an automatic pistol. . It will require 
from five to ten minutes for him to reach the 
ground after he has jumped. You can come 
down on him like a stone. Well, it's your job, 
thank the Lord! not mine," said Drew. 

It was my job, but I insisted that he would 
be an accomplice. In destroying the balloon, 
he would force me to attack the observers. 
When I asked Talbott if this feature of the at- 
tack could be eliminated he said : — 

"Certainly. I have instructions from the 
commandant touching on this point. In case 
any pilot objects to attacking the observers 
with machine-gun fire, he is to strew their para- 
chutes with autumn leaves and such field- 
flowers as the season affords. Now, listen! 
What difference, ethically, is there, between at- 
tacking one observation officer in a parachute, 

150 



A Balloon Attack 

and dropping a ton of bombs on a train-load of 
soldiers ? And to kill the observers is really more 
important than to destroy the balloon. If you 
are going to be a military pilot, for the love of 
Pete and Alf be one!" 

He was right, of course, but that did n't 
make the prospect any the more pleasant. 

The large map at the bureau now had greater 
interest for us than ever. The German balloons 
along the sector were marked in pictorially, 
with an ink line, representing the cable, run- 
ning from the basket of each one down to the 
exact spot on the map from which they were 
launched. Under one of these, "Spa. 124" 
was printed, neatly, in red ink. It was the 
farthest distant from our lines of the four to 
be attacked, and about ten kilometres within 
German-held territory. The cable ran to the 
outskirts of a village situated on a railroad and 
a small stream. The location of enemy aviation 
fields was also shown pictorially, each one 
represented by a minute sketch, very carefully 
made, of an Albatross biplane. We noticed 
that there were several aerodromes not far 
distant from our balloon. 

151 



High Adventure 

After a survey of the map, the command- 
ant's afterthought, "by the shortest route," 
was not so needless as it appeared at first. 
The German positions were in a salient, a large 
corner, the line turning almost at right angles. 
We could cross them from the south, attack 
our balloon, and then, if we wished, return to 
French territory on the west side of the salient. 

"We may miss some heavy shelling. If we 
double on our tracks going home, they will be 
expecting us, of course; whereas, if we go out 
on the west side, we will pass over batteries 
which did n't see us come in. If there should 
happen to be an east wind, there will be another 
reason in favor of the plan. The commandant 
is a shrewd soldier. It may have been his way 
of saying that the longest way round is the 
shortest way home." 

Our Spads were ready after luncheon. A 
large square of tin had been fastened over the 
fabric of each lower wing, under the rocket 
fittings, to prevent danger of fire from sparks. 
Racks for six rockets, three on a side, had been 
fastened to the struts. The rockets were tipped 
with sharp steel points to insure their pricking 

152 



A Balloon Attack 

the silk balloon envelope. The batteries for 
igniting them were connected with a button 
inside the car, within easy reach of the pilot. 
Lieutenant Verdane, our French second-in- 
command, was to supervise our practice on 
the field. We were glad of this. If we failed 
to "spear our sausage," it would not be through 
lack of efficient instruction. He explained to 
Drew how the thing was to be done. He was 
to come on the balloon into the wind, and 
preferably not more than four hundred metres 
above it. He was to let it pass from view under 
the wing; then, when he judged that he was 
directly over it, to reduce his motor and dive 
vertically, placing the bag within the line of his 
two circular sights, holding it there until the 
bag just filled the circle. At that second he 
would be about 250 metres distant from it, and 
it was then that the rockets should be fired. 

The instructions were simple enough, but in 
practicing on the target we found that they 
were not so easy to carry out. It was hard to 
judge accurately the moment for diving. Some- 
times we overshot the target, but more often 
we were short of it. Owing to the angle at which 

153 



High Adventure 

the rockets were mounted on the struts, it was 
very important that the dive should be verti- 
cal. 

One morning, the attack could have been 
made with every chance of success. Drew and 
I left the aerodrome a few minutes before 
sunrise for a trial flight, that we might give 
our motors a thorough testing. We climbed 
through a heavy mist which lay along the 
ground like water, filling every fold and hollow, 
flowing up the hillsides, submerging everything 
but the crests of the highest hills. The tops of 

the twin spires of S cathedral were all that 

could be seen of the town. Beyond, the long 
chain of heights where the first-line trenches 
were rose just clear of the mist, which glowed 
blood-red as the sun came up. 

The balloons were already up, hanging above 
the dense cloud of vapor, elongated planets 
drifting in space. The observers were direct- 
ing the fire of their batteries to those positions 
which stood revealed. Shells were also exploding 
on lower ground, for we saw the mist billow up- 
ward time after time with the force of mighty 
concussions, and slowly settle again. It was 

154 



A Balloon Attack 

an awe-inspiring sight. We might have been 
watching the last battle of the last war that 
could ever be, with the world still fighting on, 
bitterly, blindly, gradually sinking from sight 
in a sea of blood. I have never seen anything 
to equal that spectacle of an artillery battle 
in the mists. 

Conditions were ideal for the attack. We 
could have gone to the objective, fired our 
rockets, and made our return, without once 
having been seen from the ground. It was an 
opportunity made in heaven, an Allied heaven. 
"But the infantry would not have seen it," 
said J. B.; which was true. Not that we cared 
to do the thing in a spectacular fashion. We 
were thinking of that decisive effect upon 
morale. 

Two hours later we were pitching pennies in 
one of the hangars, when Talbott came across 
the field, followed solemnly by Whiskey and 
Soda, the lion mascots of the Escadrille La- 
fayette. 

"What's the date, anybody know?" he 
asked, very casually. 

J. B. is an agile-minded youth. 
155 



High Adventure 

"It is n't the umteenth by any chance?" 

"Right the first time." He looked at his 
watch. "It is now ten past ten. You have 
half an hour. Better get your rockets attached. 
How are your motors — all right?" 

This was one way of breaking the news, and 
the best one, I think. If we had been told the 
night before, we should have slept badly. 

The two patrols of protection left the field 
exactly on schedule time. At 10.35, Irving, 
Drew, and I were strapped in our machines, 
waiting, with our motors turning r dentin for 
Talbott's signal to start. 

He was romping with Whiskey. "Atta boy, 
Whiskey! Eat 'em up! Atta ole lion!" 

As a squadron leader Talbott has many vir- 
tues, but the most important of them all is his 
casualness. And he is so sincere and natural 
in it. He has no conception of the dramatic pos- 
sibilities of a situation — something to be pro- 
foundly thankful for in the commander of an 
escadrille de chasse. Situations are dramatic 
enough, tense enough, without one's taking 
thought of the fact. He might have stood there, 
watch in hand, counting off the seconds. He 

156 




■M 




JMt' "j^* . B^ 



i \ J 




A Balloon Attack 

might have said, "Remember, we're all count- 
ing on you. Don't let us down. You've got to 
get that balloon!" Instead of that, he glanced 
at his watch as if he had just remembered us. 

"All right; run along, you sausage-spearers. 
We're having lunch at twelve. That will give 
you time to wash up after you get back." 

Miller, of course, had to have a parting shot. 
He had been in hiding somewhere until the 
last moment. Then he came rushing up with a 
toothbrush and a safety-razor case. He stood 
waving them as I taxied around into the wind. 
His purpose was to remind me of the possibility 
of landing with a panne de moteur in Germany, 
and the need I would then have of my toilet 
articles. 

At 10.54, J. B. came slanting down over me, 
then pulled up in ligne de vol, and went straight 
for the lines. I fell in behind him at about one 
hundred metres distance. Irving was two hun- 
dred metres higher. Before we left the field 
he said : "You are not to think about Germans. 
That's my job. I'll warn you if I see that 
we are going to be attacked. Go straight for 
the balloon. If you don't see me come down 

157 



High Adventure 

and signal, you will know that there is no 
danger." 

The French artillery were giving splendid 
cooperation. I saw clusters of shell-explosions 
on the ground. The gunners were carrying 
out their part of the programme, which was to 
register on enemy anti-aircraft batteries as we 
passed over them. They must have made good 
practice. Anti-aircraft fire was feeble, and, such 
of it as there was, very wild. 

We came within view of the railway line 
which runs from the German lines to a large 
town, their most important distributing center 
on the sector. Following it along with my eyes 
to the halfway point, I saw the red roofs of the 
village which we had so often looked at from a 
distance. Our balloon was in its usual place. 
It looked like a yellow plum, and no larger than 
one; but ripe, ready to be plucked. 

A burst of flame far to the left attracted my 
attention, and almost at the same moment, one 
to the right. Ribbons of fire flapped upward 
in clouds of black oily smoke. Drew signaled 
with his joy-stick, and I knew what he meant : 
"Hooray! two down! It's our turn next!" 

158 



A Balloon Attack 

But we were still three or four minutes away. 
That was unfortunate, for a balloon can be 
drawn down with amazing speed. 

A rocket sailed into the air and burst in a 
point of greenish white light, dazzling in its 
brilliancy, even in the full light of day. Im- 
mediately after this two white objects, so small 
as to be hardly visible, floated earthward : the 
parachutes of the observers. They had jumped. 
The balloon disappeared from view behind 
Drew's machine. It was being drawn down, 
of course, as fast as the motor could wind up 
the cable. It was an exciting moment for us. 
We were coming on at two hundred kilome- 
tres an hour, racing against time and very 
little time at that. "Sheridan, only five miles 
away," could not have been more eager for his 
journey's end. Our throttles were wide open, 
the engines developing their highest capacity 
for power. 

I swerved out to one side for another glimpse 
of the target: it was almost on the ground, and 
directly under us. Drew made a steep virage 
and dived. I started after him in a tight spiral, 
to look for the observers; but they had both 

159 



High Adventure 

disappeared. The balloon was swaying from 
side to side under the tension of the cable. It 
was hard to keep it in view. I lost it under my 
wing. Tipping up on the other side, I saw 
Drew release his rockets. They spurted out in 
long wavering lines of smoke. He missed. 
The balloon lay close to the ground, looking 
larger, riper than ever. The sight of its smooth, 
sleek surface was the most tantalizing of invita- 
tions. Letting it pass under me again, I waited 
for a second or two, then shut down the motor, 
and pushed forward on the control-stick until 
I was falling vertically. Standing upright on 
the rudder-bar, I felt the tugging of the shoul- 
der-straps. Getting the bag well within the 
sights, I held it there until it just filled the 
circle. Then I pushed the button. 

Although it was only eight o'clock, both Drew 
and I were in bed; for we were both very tired, 
it was a chilly evening, and we had no fire. 
An oil lamp was on the table between the two 
cots. Drew was sitting propped up, his fur 
coat rolled into a bundle for a back-rest. He 
had a sweater, tied by the sleeves, around his 

160 




SPAD SINGLE-SEATER COMBAT AVION 




LETORD THREE-PASSENGER BIPLANE 



A Balloon Attack 

shoulders. His hands were clasped around his 
blanketed knees, and his breath, rising in a 
cloud of luminous steam, — 

" Like pious incense from a censer old, 
Seemed taking flight for heaven without a death." 

And yet, "pious " is hardly the word. J. B. was 
swearing, drawing from a choice reserve of pic- 
turesque epithets which I did not know that he 
possessed. I regret the necessity of omitting 
some of them. 

"I don't see how I could have missed it! 
Why, I did n't turn to look for at least thirty 
seconds. I was that sure that I had brought it 
down. Then I banked and nearly fell out of my 
seat when I saw it there. I redressed at four 
hundred metres. I could n't have been more 
than one hundred metres away when I fired the 
rockets." 

"What did you do then?" 

" Circled around, waiting for you. I had the 
balloon in sight all the while you were diving. 
It was a great sight to watch from below, 
particularly when you let go your rockets. 
I '11 never forget it, never. But, Lord ! With- 

161 



High Adventure 

out the climax! Artistically, it was an awful 
fizzle." 

There was no denying this. A balloon bon- 
fire was the only possible conclusion to the ad- 
venture, and we both failed at lighting it. I, 
too, redressed when very close to the bag, 
and made a steep bank in order to escape the 
burst of flame from the ignited gas. The rock- 
ets leaped out, with a fine, blood-stirring roar. 
The mere sound ought to have been enough to 
make any balloon collapse. But when I turned, 
there it was, intact, a super-Brobdingnagian 
pumpkin, seen at close view, and still ripe, still 
ready for plucking. If I live to one hundred 
years, I shall never have a greater surprise or a 
more bitter disappointment. 

There was no leisure for brooding over it 
then. My altimeter registered only two hun- 
dred and fifty metres, and the French lines were 
far distant. If the motor failed I should have to 
land in German territory. Any fate but that. 
Nevertheless, I felt in the pocket of my com- 
bination, to be sure that my box of matches was 
safely in place. We were cautioned always to 
carry them where they could be quickly got at 

162 



A Balloon Attack 

in case of a forced landing in enemy country. 
An airman must destroy his machine in such 
an event. But my Spad did not mean to end 
its career so ingloriously. The motor ran beau- 
tifully, hitting on every cylinder. We climbed 
from two hundred and fifty metres to three 
hundred and fifty, four hundred and fifty, and 
on steadily upward. In the vicinity of the bal- 
loon, machine-gun fire from the ground had 
been fairly heavy; but I was soon out of range, 
and saw the tracer bullets, like swarms of blue 
bubbles, curving downward again at the end 
of their trajectory. 

No machines, either French or German, were 
in sight. Irving had disappeared some time be- 
fore we reached the balloon. I had not seen 
Drew from the moment when he fired his rock- 
ets. He waited until he made sure that I was 
following, then started for the west side of the 
salient. I did not see him, because of my inter- 
est in those clouds of blue bubbles which were 
rising with anything but bubble-like tranquil- 
lity. When I was clear of them, I set my course 
westward and parallel with the enemy lines to 
the south. 

163 



High Adventure 

I had never flown so low, so far in German 
territory. The temptation to forget precau- 
tion and to make a leisurely survey of the 
ground beneath was hard to resist. It was not 
wholly resisted, in fact. Anti-aircraft fire was 
again feeble and badly ranged. The shells burst 
far behind and above, for I was much too low 
to offer an easy target. This gave me a danger- 
ous sense of safety, and so I tipped up on one 
side, then on the other, examining the roads, 
searching the ruins of villages, the trenches, the 
shell-marked ground. I saw no living thing, 
brute or human; nothing but endless, incon- 
ceivable desolation. 

The foolishness of that close scrutiny alone, 
without the protection of other avions, I realize 
now much better than I did then. Unless fly- 
ing at six thousand metres or above, — when 
he is comparatively safe from attack, — a pilot 
may never relax his vigilance for thirty seconds 
together. He must look behind him, below, 
above, constantly. All aviators learn this even- 
tually, but in the case of many new pilots the 
knowledge comes too late to be of service. I 
thought this was to be my experience, when, 

164 



A Balloon Attack 

looking up, I saw five combat machines bearing 
down upon me. Had they been enemy planes 
my chances would have been very small, for 
they were close at hand before I saw them. 
The old French aviator, worn out by his five 
hundred hours of flight over the trenches, said, 
"Save your nervous energy." I exhausted a 
three-months reserve in as many seconds. The 
suspense, luckily, was hardly longer than that. 
It passed when the patrol leader, followed by 
the others, pulled up in ligne de vol, about one 
hundred metres above me, showing their French 
cocardes. It was the group of protection of 
Spa. 87. At the time I saw Drew, a quarter 
of a mile away. As he turned, the sunlight 
glinted along his rocket-tubes. 

A crowded hour of glorious life it seems now, 
although I was not of this opinion at the time. 
In reality, we were absent barely forty minutes. 
Climbing out of my machine at the aerodrome, 
I looked at my watch. A quarter to twelve. 
Laignier, the sergeant mechanician, was sitting 
in a sunny corner of the hangar, reading the 
"Matin," just as I had left him. 

Lieutenant Talbott's only comment was: 

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High Adventure 

"Don't let it worry you. Better luck next time. 
The group bagged two out of four, and Irving 
knocked down a Boche who was trying to get 
at you. That is n't bad for half an hour's work." 

But the decisive effect on morale which was 
to result from our wholesale destruction of bal- 
loons was diminished by half. We had forced 
ours down, but it bobbed up again very soon af- 
terward. The one-o'clock patrol saw it, higher, 
Miller said, than it had ever been. It was Miller, 
by the way, who looked in on us at nine o'clock 
the same evening. The lamp was out. 

"Asleep?" 

Neither of us was, but we did n't answer. 
He closed the door, then reopened it. 

"It's laziness, that's what it is. They ought 
to put you on school regime again." 

He had one more afterthought. Looking in 
a third time, he said, — 

"How about it, you little old human dyna- 
mos; are you getting rusty?" 



VII 

BROUGHT DOWN 

The preceding chapters of this journal have 
been written to little purpose if it has not been 
made clear that Drew and I, like most pilots 
during the first weeks of service at the front, 
were worth little to the Allied cause. We were 
warned often enough that the road to efficiency 
in military aviation is a long and dangerous one. 
We were given much excellent advice by avia- 
tors who knew what they were talking about. 
Much of this we solicited, in fact, and then 
proceeded to disregard it item by item. Eager 
to get results, we plunged into our work with 
the valor of ignorance, the result being that 
Drew was shot down in one of his first encoun- 
ters, escaping with his life by one of those more 
than miracles for which there is no explanation. 
That I did not fare as badly or worse is due 
solely to the indulgence of that godfather of 
ours, already mentioned, who watched over my 
first flights while in a mood beneficently pro- 
Ally. 

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High Adventure 

Drew's adventure followed soon after our 
first patrol, when he had the near combat 
with the two-seater. Luckily, on that occasion, 
both the German pilot and his machine-gunner 
were taken completely off their guard. Not 
only did he attack with the sun squarely in his 
face, but he went down in a long, gradual dive, 
in full view of the gunner, who could not have 
asked for a better target. But the man was 
asleep, and this gave J. B. a dangerous con- 
tempt for all gunners of enemy nationality. 

Lieutenant Talbott cautioned him. "You 
have been lucky, but don't get it into your head 
that this sort of thing happens often. Now, I 'm 
going to give you a standing order. You are 
not to attack again, neither of you are to think 
of attacking, during your first month here. As 
likely as not it would be your luck the next time 
to meet an old pilot. If you did, I would n't 
give much for your chances. He would out- 
maneuver you in a minute. You will go out on 
patrol with the others, of course; it's the only 
way to learn to fight. But if you get lost, go 
back to our balloons and stay there until it is 
time to go home." 

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Brought Down 

Neither of us obeyed this order, and, as it 
happened, Drew was the one to suffer. A group 
of American officers visited the squadron one 
afternoon. In courtesy to our guests, it was 
decided to send out all the pilots for an addi- 
tional patrol, to show them how the thing was 
done. Twelve machines were in readiness for 
the sortie, which was set for seven o'clock, the 
last one of the day. We were to meet at three 
thousand metres, and then to divide forces, 
one patrol to cover the east half of the sector 
and one the west. 

We got away beautifully, with the exception 
of Drew, who had motor-trouble and was five 
minutes late in starting. With his permission 
I insert here his own account of the adven- 
ture — a letter written while he was in hospital. 

No doubt you are wondering what happened, 
listening, meanwhile, to many I-told-you-so ex- 
planations from the others. This will be hard on 
you, but bear up, son. It might not be a bad plan 
to listen, with the understanding as well as with 
the ear, to some expert advice on how to bag the 
Hun. To quote the prophetic Miller, "I'm tell- 
ing you this for your own good." 

I gave my name and the number of the esca- 

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High Adventure 



drille to the medical officer at the poste de secours. 
He said he would 'phone the captain at once, so 
that you must know before this, that I have been 
amazingly lucky. I fell the greater part of two 
miles — count 'em, two! — before I actually re- 
gained control, only to lose it again. I fainted 
while still several hundred feet from the ground; 
but more of this later. Could n't sleep last night. 
Had a fever and my brain went on a spree, taking 
advantage of my helplessness. I just lay in bed 
and watched it function. Besides, there was a great 
artillery racket all night long. It appeared to be 
coming from our sector, so you must have heard 
it as well. This hospital is not very far back and 
we get the full orchestral effect of heavy firing. 
The result is that I am dead tired to-day. I be- 
lieve I can sleep for a week. 

They have given me a bed in the officers' ward 
— me, a corporal. It is because I am an Ameri- 
can, of course. Wish there was some way of show- 
ing one's appreciation for so much kindness. My 
neighbor.on the left is a chasseur captain. A hand- 
grenade exploded in his face. He will go through 
life horribly disfigured. An old padre, with two 
machine-gun bullets in his hip, is on the other side. 
He is very patient, but sometimes the pain is 
a little too much for him. To a Frenchman, "Oh, 
la, la!" is an expression for every conceivable kind 
of emotion. In the future it will mean unbearable 
physical pain to me. Our orderlies are two poilus, 
long past military age. They are as gentle and 

170 



Brought Down 

thoughtful as the nurses themselves. One of them 
brought me lemonade all night long. Worth while 
getting wounded just to have something taste so 
good. 

I meant to finish this letter a week ago, but 
have n't felt up to it. Quite perky this morning, 
so I '11 go on with the tale of my "heroic combat." 
Only, first, tell me how that absurd account of it 
got into the "Herald"? I hope Talbott knows 
that I was not foolish enough to attack six Ger- 
mans single-handed. If he does n't, please en- 
lighten him. His opinion of my common sense 
must be low enough, as it is. 

We were to meet over S at three thousand 

metres, you remember, and to cover the sector 
at five thousand until dusk. I was late in getting 
away, and by the time I reached the rendezvous 
you had all gone. There was n't a chasse machine 
in sight. I ought to have gone back to the balloons 
as Talbott advised, but thought it would be easy 
to pick you up later, so went on alone after I had 
got some height. Crossed the lines at thirty-five 
hundred metres, and finally got up to four thou- 
sand, which was the best I could do with my re- 
built engine. The Huns started shelling, but 
there were only a few of them that barked. I 
went down the lines for a quarter of an hour, 
meeting two Sepwiths and a Letord, but no Spads. 
You were almost certain to be higher than I, but 
my old packet was doing its best at four thousand, 

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High Adventure 



and getting overheated with the exertion. Had to 
throttle down and pique several times to cool off. 
Then I saw you — at least I thought it was you 
— about four kilometres inside the German lines. 
I counted six machines, well grouped, one a good 
deal higher than the others and one several hun- 
dred metres below them. The pilot on top was 
doing beautiful renversements and an occasional 
barrel-turn, in Barry's manner. I was so certain 
it was our patrol that I started over at once, to 
join you. It was getting dusk and I lost sight of 
the machine lowest down for a few seconds. 
Without my knowing it, he was approaching at 
exactly my altitude. You know how difficult it 
is to see a machine in that position. Suddenly he 
loomed up in front of me like an express train, 
as you have seen them approach from the depths 
of a moving-picture screen, only ten times faster; 
and he was firing as he came. I realized my awful 
mistake, of course. His tracer bullets were going 
by on the left side, but he corrected his aim, and 
my motor seemed to be eating them up. I banked 
to the right, and was about to cut my motor and 
dive, when I felt a smashing blow in the left 
shoulder. A sickening sensation and a very pecu- 
liar one, not at all what I thought it might feel 
like to be hit with a bullet. I believed that it 
came from the German in front of me. But it 
could n't have, for he was still approaching when 
I was hit, and I have learned here that the bullet 
entered from behind. 

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Brought Down 



This is the history of less than a minute I'm 
giving you. It seemed much longer than that, 
but I don't suppose it was. I tried to shut down 
the motor, but could n't manage it because my 
left arm was gone. I really believed that it had 
been blown off into space until I glanced down 
and saw that it was still there. But for any serv- 
ice it was to me, I might just as well have lost it. 
There was a vacant period of ten or fifteen sec- 
onds which I can't fill in. After that I knew that 
I was falling, with my motor going full speed. 
It was a helpless realization. My brain refused 
to act. I could do nothing. Finally, I did have 
one clear thought, "Am I on fire?" This cut 
right through the fog, brought me up broad 
awake. I was falling almost vertically, in a sort 
of half vrille. No machine but a Spad could have 
stood the strain. The Huns were following me 
and were not far away, judging by the sound of 
their guns. I fully expected to feel another bullet 
or two boring its way through. One did cut the 
skin of my right leg, although I did n't know this 
until I reached the hospital. Perhaps it was well 
that I did fall out of control, for the firing soon 
stopped, the Germans thinking, and with reason, 
that they had bagged me. Some proud Boche 
airman is wearing an iron cross on my account. 
Perhaps the whole crew of dare-devils has been 
decorated. However, no unseemly sarcasm. We 
would pounce on a lonely Hun just as quickly. 
There is no chivalry in war in these modern days. 

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High Adventure 

I pulled out of the spin, got the broomstick 
between my knees, reached over, and shut down 
the motor with my right hand. The propeller 
stopped dead. I did n't much care, being very 
drowsy and tired. The worst of it was that I 
could n't get my breath. I was gasping as though 
I had been hit in the pit of the stomach. Then 
I lost control again and started falling. It was 
awful! I was almost ready to give up. I believe 
that I said, out loud, "I'm going to be killed. 
This is my last sortie." At any rate, I thought it. 
Made one last effort and came out in ligne de vol, 
as nearly as I could judge, about one hundred 
and fifty metres from the ground. It was an ugly- 
looking place for landing, trenches and shell-holes 
everywhere. I was wondering in a vague way 
whether they were French or German, when I fell 
into the most restful sleep I Ve ever had in my life. 

I have no recollection of the crash, not the 
slightest. I might have fallen as gently as a leaf. 
That is one thing to be thankful for among a good 
many others. When I came to, it was at once, 
completely. I knew that I was on a stretcher and 
remembered immediately exactly what had hap- 
pened. My heart was going pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, 
and I could hardly breathe, but I had no sensa- 
tion of pain except in my chest. This made me 
think that I had broken every bone in my body. 
I tried moving first one leg, then the other, then 
my arms, my head, my body. No trouble at all, 
except with my left arm and side. 

174 



Brought Down 

I accepted the miracle without attempting to 
explain it, for I had something more important 
to wonder about: who had the handles of my 
stretcher? The first thing I did was to open my 
eyes, but I was bleeding from a scratch on the 
forehead and saw only a red blur. I wiped them 
dry with my sleeve and looked again. The broad 
back in front of me was covered with mud. Im- 
possible to distinguish the color of the tunic. But 
the shrapnel helmet above it was — French! I 
was in French hands. If ever I live long enough 
in one place, so that I may gather a few posses- 
sions and make a home for myself, on one wall of 
my living-room I will have a bust-length portrait, 
rear view, of a French brancardier, mud-covered 
back and battered tin hat. 

Do you remember our walk with Menault in 
the rain, and the dejeuner at the restaurant where 
they made such wonderful omelettes? I am sure 
that you will recall the occasion, although you 
may have forgotten the conversation. I have 
not forgotten one remark of Menault's apropos 
of talk about risks. If a man were willing, he said, 
to stake everything for it, he would accumulate 
an experience of fifteen or twenty minutes which 
would compensate him, a thousand times over, 
for all the hazard. "And if you live to be old," 
he said quaintly, "you can never be bored with 
life. You will have something, always, very pleas- 
ant to think about." I mention this in connection 
with my discovery that I was not in German 

175 



High Adventure 



hands. I have had five minutes of perfect hap- 
piness without any background — no thought of 
yesterday or to-morrow — to spoil it. 

I said, "Bonjour, messieurs," in a gurgling 
voice. The man in front turned his head sidewise 
and said, — 

"Tiens! Ca va, monsieur Paviateur?" 

The other one said, "Ah, mon vieux!" You 
know the inflection they give this expression, par- 
ticularly when it means, "This is something won- 
derful!" He added that they had seen the combat 
and my fall, and little expected to find the pilot 
living, to say nothing of speaking. I hoped that 
they would go on talking, but I was being carried 
along a trench; they had to lift me shoulder-high 
at every turn, and needed all their energy. The 
Germans were shelling the lines. Several fell 
fairly close, and they brought me down a long 
flight of wooden steps into a dugout to wait until 
the worst of it should be over. While waiting, they 
told me that I had fallen just within the first-line 
trenches, at a spot where a slight rise in ground 
hid me from sight of the enemy. Otherwise, 
they might have had a bad time rescuing me. 
My Spad was completely wrecked. It fell squarely 
into a trench, the wings breaking the force of the 
fall. Before reaching the ground, I turned, they 
said, and was making straight for Germany. 
Fifty metres higher, and I would have come down 
in No Man's Land. 

For a long time we listened in silence to the 

176 



Brought Down 

subdued crr-ump, crr-ump, of the shells. Some- 
times showers of earth pattered down the stair- 
way, and we would hear the high-pitched, dron- 
ing V-z-z-z of pieces of shell-casing as they 
whizzed over the opening. One of them would 
say, "Not far, that one"; or, "He's looking for 
some one, that fellow," in a voice without a hint 
of emotion. Then, long silences and other deep, 
earth-shaking rumbles. 

They asked me, several times, if I was suffer- 
ing, and offered to go on to the poste de secours if 
I wanted them to. It was not heavy bombard- 
ment, but it would be safer to wait for a little while. 
I told them that I was ready to go on at any time, 
but not to hurry on my account; I was quite 
comfortable. 

The light glimmering down the stairway faded 
out and we were in complete darkness. My 
brain was amazingly clear. It registered every 
trifling impression. I wish it might always be so 
intensely awake and active. There seemed to be 
four of us in the dugout; the two brancardiers, 
and this second self of mine, as curious as an 
eavesdropper at a keyhole, listening intently to 
everything, and then turning to whisper to me. 
The brancardiers repeated the same comments 
after every explosion. I thought: "They have 
been saying this to each other for over three 
years. It has become automatic. They will never 
be able to stop." I was feverish, perhaps. If it 
was fever, it burned away any illusions I may have 

177 



High Adventure 



had of modern warfare from the infantryman's 
viewpoint. I know that there is no glamour in it 
for them; that it has long since become a deadly- 
monotony, an endless repetition of the same kinds 
of horror and suffering, a boredom more terrible 
than death itself, which is repeating itself in the 
same ways, day after day and month after month. 
It is n't often that an aviator has the chance I 've 
had. It would be a good thing if they were to send 
us into the trenches for twenty-four hours, every 
few months. It would make us keener fighters, 
more eager to do our utmost to bring the war to 
an end for the sake of those poilus. 

The dressing-station was in a very deep dugout, 
lighted by candles. At a table in the center of the 
room the medical officer was working over a man 
with a terribly crushed leg. Several others were 
sitting or lying along the wall, awaiting their 
turn. They watched every movement he made in 
an apprehensive, animal way, and so did I. They 
put me on the table next, although it was not my 
turn. I protested, but the doctor paid no atten- 
tion. "Aviateur americain," again. It's a pity 
that Frenchmen can't treat us Americans as though 
we belong here. 

As soon as the doctor had finished with me, my 
stretcher was fastened to a two-wheeled carrier 
and we started down a cobbled road to the ambu- 
lance station. I was light-headed and don't re- 
member much of that part of the journey. Had 
to take refuge in another dugout when the Huns 

i 7 8 



Brought Down 

dropped a shell on an ammunition-dump in a 
village through which we were to pass. There 
was a deafening banging and booming for a long 
time, and when we did go through the town it 
was on the run. The whole place was in flames 
and small-arms ammunition still exploding. I 
remember seeing a long column of soldiers going 
at the double in the opposite direction, and they 
were in full marching order. 

Well, this is the end of the tale; all of it, at any 
rate, in which you would be interested. It was 
one o'clock in the morning before I got between 
cool, clean sheets, and I was wounded about a 
quarter past eight. I have been tired ever since. 

There is another aviator here, a Frenchman, 
who broke his jaw and both legs in a fall while 
returning from a night bombardment. His bed is 
across the aisle from mine; he has a formidable- 
looking apparatus fastened on his head and under 
his chin, to hold his jaw firm until the bones knit. 
He is forbidden to talk, but breaks the rule when- 
ever the nurse leaves the ward. He speaks a little 
English and has told me a delightful story about 
the origin of aerial combat. A French pilot, a 
friend of his, he says, attached to a certain army 
group during August and September, 1914, often 
met a German aviator during his reconnaissance 
patrols. In those Arcadian days, fighting in the 
air was a development for the future, and these 
two pilots exchanged greetings, not cordially, 
perhaps, but courteously: a wave of the hand, as 

179 



High Adventure 

much as to say, "We are enemies, but we need 
not forget the civilities." Then they both went 
about their work of spotting batteries, watching 
for movements of troops, etc. One morning the 
German failed to return the salute. The French- 
man thought little of this, and greeted him in the 
customary manner at their next meeting. To his 
surprise, the Boche shook his fist at him in the 
most blustering and caddish way. There was no 
mistaking the insult. They had passed not fifty 
metres from each other, and the Frenchman dis- 
tinctly saw the closed fist. He was saddened by 
the incident, for he had hoped that some of the 
ancient courtesies of war would survive in the 
aerial branch of the service, at least. It angered 
him too; therefore, on his next reconnaissance, 
he ignored the German. Evidently the Boche 
air-squadrons were being Prussianized. The en- 
emy pilot approached very closely and threw a 
missile at him. He could not be sure what it was, 
as the object went wide of the mark; but he was so 
incensed that he made a virage, and drawing a 
small flask from his pocket, hurled it at his boorish 
antagonist. The flask contained some excellent 
port, he said, but he was repaid for the loss in 
seeing it crash on the exhaust-pipe of the enemy 
machine. 

This marked the end of courtesy and the begin- 
ning of active hostilities in the air. They were 
soon shooting at each other with rifles, automatic 
pistols, and at last with machine guns. Later 

1 80 



Brought Down 

developments we know about. The night bom- 
barder has been telling me this yarn in serial 
form. When the nurse is present, he illustrates 
the last chapter by means of gestures. I am ready 
to believe everything but the incident about the 
port. That does n't sound plausible. A French- 
man would have thrown his watch before making 
such a sacrifice! 



VIII 

ONE HUNDRED HOURS 

A little more than a year after our first meet- 
ing in the Paris restaurant which has so many 
pleasant memories for us, Drew completed his 
first one hundred hours of flight over the lines, 
an event in the life of an airman which calls for 
a celebration of some sort. Therefore, having 
been granted leave for the afternoon, the two 
of us came into the old French town of Bar-le- 
Duc, by the toy train which wanders down 
from the Verdun sector. We had dinner in one 
of those homelike little places where the food 
is served by the proprietor himself. On this 
occasion it was served hurriedly, and the bill 
presented promptly at eight o'clock. Our host 
was very sorry, but "les sales Boches, vous 
savez, messieurs?" They had come the night 
before: a dozen houses destroyed, women and 
children killed and maimed. With a full moon 
to guide them, they would be sure to return 
to-night. "Ah, cette guerre! Quand sera-t-elle 
finie?" He offered us a refuge until our train 

182 



One Hundred Hours 

should leave. Usually, he said, he played 
solitaire while waiting for the Germans, but 
with houses tumbling about one's ears, he 
much preferred company. "And my wife and 
I are old people. She is very deaf, heureuse- 
ment. She hears nothing." 

J. B. declined the invitation. "A brave way 
that would be to finish our evening!" he said 
as we walked down the silent street. " I wanted 
to say, 'Monsieur, I have just finished my first 
one hundred hours of flight at the front.' But 
he would n't have known what that means." 

I said, "No, he wouldn't have known." 
Then we had no further talk for about two 
hours. A few soldiers, late arrivals, were prowl- 
ing about in the shadow of the houses, search- 
ing for food and a warm kitchen where they 
might eat it. Some insistent ones pounded on 
the door of a restaurant far in the distance. 

"Dites done, patron! Nous avons faim, nom 
de Dieu ! Est-ce-que tout le monde est mort ici ? " 

" Only a host of phantom listeners, 
That dwelt in the lone house then, 
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight 
To that voice from the world of men." 

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High Adventure 

It was that kind of silence, profound, tense, 
ghostlike. We walked through street after 
street, from one end of the town to the other, 
and saw only one light, a faint glimmer which 
came from a slit of a cellar window almost on 
the level of the pavement. We were curious, 
no doubt. At any rate, we looked in. A woman 
was sitting on a cot bed with her arms around 
two little children. They were snuggled up 
against her and both fast asleep; but she was 
sitting very erect, in a strained, listening atti- 
tude, staring straight before her. Since that 
night we have believed, both of us, that if wars 
can be won only by haphazard night bombard- 
ments of towns where there are women and 
children, then they had far better be lost. 

But I am writing a journal of high adventure 
of a cleaner kind, in which all the resources in 
skill and cleverness of one set of men are pitted 
against those of another set. We have no bomb- 
dropping to do, and there are but few women 
and children living in the territory over which 
we fly. One hundred hours is not a great while 
as time is measured on the ground, but in 
terms of combat patrols, the one hundredth 

184 



One Hundred Hours 

part of it has held more of adventure in the 
true meaning of the word than we have had 
during the whole of our lives previously. 

At first we were far too busy learning the ru- 
diments of combat to keep an accurate record 
of flying time. We thought our aeroplane clocks 
convenient pieces of equipment rather than 
necessary ones. I remember coming down from 
my first air battle and the breathless account 
I gave of it at the bureau, breathless and vague. 
Lieutenant Talbott listened quietly, making 
out the compte rendu as I talked. When I had 
finished, he emphasized the haziness of my an- 
swers to his questions by quoting them : " Re- 
gion: 'You know, that big wood!' Time: 'This 
morning, of course!' Rounds fired: 'Oh, a 
lot!' "etc. 

Not until we had been flying for a month or 
more did we learn how to make the right use 
of our clocks and of our eyes while in the air. 
We listened with amazement to after-patrol 
talk at the mess. We learned more of what 
actually happened on our sorties, after they 
were over than while they were in progress. 
All of the older pilots missed seeing nothing 

185 



High Adventure 

which there was to see. They reported the num- 
bers of the enemy planes encountered, the 
types, where seen and when. They spotted 
batteries, trains in stations back of the enemy 
lines, gave the hour precisely, reported any ac- 
tivity on the roads. In moments of exaspera- 
tion Drew would say, "I think they are string- 
ing us! This is all a put-up job!" Certainly 
this did appear to be the case at first. For we 
were air-blind. We saw little of the activity 
all around us, and details on the ground had no 
significance. How were we to take thought of 
time and place and altitude, note the peculiari- 
ties of enemy machines, count their numbers, 
and store all this information away in memory 
at the moment of combat? This was a great 
problem. 

"What I need," J. B. used to say, "is a trav- 
eling private secretary. I '11 do the fighting and 
he can keep the diary." 

I needed one, too, a man air-wise and battle- 
wise, who could calmly take note of my clock, 
altimeter, temperature and pressure dials, iden- 
tify exactly the locality on my map, count the 
numbers of the enemy, estimate their approx- 

186 ■ 



One Hundred Hours 

imate altitude, — all this when the air was 
criss-crossed with streamers of smoke from 
machine-gun tracer bullets, and opposing air- 
craft were maneuvering for position, diving 
and firing at each other, spiraling, nose-spin- 
ning, wing-slipping, climbing, in a confusing 
intermingling of tricolor cocards and black 
crosses. 

We made gradual progress, the result being 
that our patrols became a hundred-fold more 
fascinating, sometimes, in fact, too much so. 
It was important that we should be able to 
read the ground, but more important still to 
remember that what was happening there was 
only of secondary concern to us. Often we be- 
came absorbed in watching what was taking 
place below us, to the exclusion of any thought 
of aerial activity, our chances for attack or of 
being attacked.^ The view, from the air, of a 
heavy bombardment, or of an infantry attack 
under cover of barrage fires, is a truly terrible 
spectacle, and in the air one has a feeling of 
detachment which is not easily overcome. 

Yet it must be overcome, as I have said, 
and cannot say too many times for the benefit 

187 



High Adventure 

of any young airman who may read this jour- 
nal. During an offensive the air swarms with 
planes. They are at all altitudes, from the low- 
est artillery reglage machines at a few hundreds 
of metres, to the highest avions de chasse at six 
thousand meters and above. Reglage, photo- 
graphic, and reconnaissance planes have their 
particular work to do. They defend themselves 
as best they can, but almost never attack. 
Combat avions, on the other hand ; are always 
looking for victims. They are the ones chiefly 
dangerous to the unwary pursuit pilot. 

Drew's first official victory came as the re- 
sult of a one-sided battle with an Albatross 
single-seater, whose pilot evidently did not 
know there was an enemy within miles of him. 
No more did J. B. for that matter. "It was 
pure accident," he told me afterward. He had 
gone from Rheims to the Argonne forest with- 
out meeting a single German. "And I did n't 
want to meet one; for it was Thanksgiving Day. 
It has associations for me, you know. I'm a 
New Englander." It is not possible to con- 
vince him that it has any real significance for 
men who were not born on the North Atlan- 

188 



One Hundred Hours 

tic seaboard. Well, all the way he had been 
humming 

"Over the river and through the wood 
To grandfather's house we go," 

to himself. It is easy to understand why he 
did n't want to meet a German. He must 
have been in a curiously mixed frame of mind. 
He covered the sector again and passed over 
Rheims, going northeast. Then he saw the 
Albatross; "and if you had been standing on 
one of the towers of the cathedral you would 
have seen a very unequal battle." The Ger- 
man was about two kilometres inside his own 
lines, and at least a thousand metres below. 
Drew had every advantage. 

"He did n't see me until I opened fire, and 
then, as it happened, it was too late. My gun 
didn't jam!" 

The German started falling out of control, 
Drew following him down until he lost sight of 
him in making a virage. 

I leaned against the canvas wall of a hangar, 
registering incredulity. Three times out of 
seven, to make a conservative estimate, we 
fight inconclusive battles because of faulty 

189 



High Adventure 

machine guns or defective ammunition. The 
ammunition, most of it that is bad, comes from 
America. 

While Drew was giving me the details, an 
orderly from the bureau brought word that an 
enemy machine had just been reported shot 
down on our sector. It was Drew's Albatross, 
but he nearly lost official credit for having de- 
stroyed it, because he did not know exactly the 
hour when the combat occurred. His watch 
was broken and he had neglected asking for 
another before starting. He judged the time 
of the attack, approximately, as two-thirty, 
and the infantry observers, reporting the re- 
sult, gave it as twenty minutes to three. The 
region in both cases coincided exactly, however, 
and, fortunately, Drew's was the only combat 
which had taken place in that vicinity during 
the afternoon. 

For an hour after his return he was very 
happy. He had won his first victory, always 
the hardest to gain, and had been complimented 
by the commandant, by Lieutenant Nungesser, 
the Roi des Jces, and by other French and Ameri- 
can pilots. There is no petty jealousy among 

190 



One Hundred Hours 

airmen, and in our group the esprit de corps is 
unusually fine. Rivalry is keen, but each 
squadron takes almost as much pride in the 
work of the other squadrons as it does in its 
own. 

The details of the result were horrible. The 
Albatross broke up two thousand metres from 
the ground, one wing falling within the French 
lines. Drew knew what it meant to be wounded 
and falling out of control. But his Spad held 
together. He had a chance for his life. Sup- 
posing the German to have been merely 
wounded — An airman's joy in victory is a 
short-lived one. 

Nevertheless, a curious change takes place 
in his attitude toward his work, as the months 
pass. I can best describe it in terms of Drew's 
experience and my own. We came to the front 
feeling deeply sorry for ourselves, and for all 
airmen of whatever nationality, whose lives 
were to be snuffed out in their promising be- 
ginnings. I used to play "The Minstrel Boy to 
the War Has Gone" on a tin flute, and Drew 
wrote poetry. While we were waiting for our 
first machine, he composed "The Airman's 

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High Adventure 

Rendezvous," written in the manner of Alan 
Seeger's poem. 

"And I in the wide fields of air 
Must keep with him my rendezvous. 
It may be I shall meet him there 
When clouds, like sheep, move slowly through 
The pathless meadows of the sky 
And their cool shadows go beneath, — 
I have a rendezvous with Death 
Some summer noon of white and blue." 

There is more of it, in the same manner, all 
of which he read me in a husky voice. I, too, 
was ready to weep at our untimely fate. The 
strange thing is that his prophecy came so very 
near being true. He had the first draft of the 
poem in his breast-pocket when wounded, and 
has kept the gory relic to remind him — not 
that he needs reminding — of the airy manner 
in which he canceled what ought to have been 
a bona-fide appointment. 

I do not mean to reflect in any way upon 
Alan Seeger's beautiful poem. Who can doubt 
that it is a sincere, as well as a perfect, expres- 
sion of a mood common to all young soldiers? 
Drew was just as sincere in writing his verses, 
and I put all the feeling I could into my tin- 

192 



One Hundred Hours 

whistle interpretation of "The Minstrel Boy." 
What I want to make clear is, that a soldier's 
moods of self-pity are fleeting ones, and if he 
lives, he outgrows them. 

Imagination is an especial curse to an airman, 
particularly if it takes a gloomy or morbid turn. 
We used to write "To whom it may concern" 
letters before going out on patrol, in which we 
left directions for the notification of our rela- 
tives and the disposal of our personal effects in 
case of death. Then we would climb into our 
machines thinking, "This may be our last 
sortie. We may be dead in an hour, in half an 
hour, in twenty minutes." We planned splen- 
didly spectacular ways in which we were to be 
brought down, always omitting one, however, 
the most horrible as well as the most common, 
— in flames. Thank Fortune, we have out- 
grown this second and belated period of adoles- 
cence and can now take a healthy interest in 
our work. 

Now, an inevitable part of the daily routine 
is to be shelled, persistently, methodically, and 
often accurately shelled. Our interest in this 
may, I suppose, be called healthy, inasmuch as 

193 



High Adventure 

it would be decidedly unhealthy to become in- 
different to the activities of the German anti- 
aircraft gunners. It would be far-fetched to 
say that any airman ever looks forward zest- 
fully to the business of being shot at with one 
hundred and fives; and seventy-fives, if they 
are well placed, are unpleasant enough. After 
one hundred hours of it, we have learned to 
assume that attitude of contemptuous tolera- 
tion which is the manner common to all pilotes 
de chasse. We know that the chances of a direct 
hit are almost negligible, and that we have all 
the blue dome of the heavens in which to 
maneuver. 

Furthermore, we have learned many little 
tricks by means of which we can keep the 
gunners guessing. By way of illustration, we 
are patrolling, let us say, at thirty-five hundred 
metres, crossing and recrossing the lines, fol- 
lowing the patrol leader, who has his motor 
throttled down so that we may keep well in 
formation. The guns may be silent for the 
moment, but we know well enough what the 
gunners are doing. We know exactly where 
some of the batteries are, and the approximate 

194 



One Hundred Hours 

location of all of them along the sector; and we 
know, from earlier experience, when we come 
within range of each individual battery. Pres- 
ently one of them begins firing in bursts of 
four shells. If their first estimate of our range 
has been an accurate one, if they place them 
uncomfortably close, so that we can hear, all 
too well, above the roar of our motors, the rend- 
ing Gr-r-rOW, Gr-r-rOW, of the shells as they 
explode, we sail calmly — to all outward ap- 
pearances — on, maneuvering very little. The 
gunners, seeing that we are not disturbed, will 
alter their ranges, four times out of five, which 
is exactly what we want them to do. 

The next bursts will be hundreds of metres 
below or above us, whereupon we show signs 
of great uneasiness, and the gunners, thinking 
they have our altitude, begin to fire like demons. 
We employ our well-earned immunity in pre- 
paring for the next series of batteries, or in 
thinking of the cost to Germany, at one hun- 
dred francs a shot, of all this futile shelling. 
Drew, in particular, loves this cost-accounting 
business, and I must admit that much pleasure 
may be had in it, after patrol. They rarely fire 

195 



High Adventure 



less than fifty shells at us during a two-hour 
patrol. Making a low general average, the num- 
ber is nearer one hundred and fifty. On our 
present front, where aerial activity is fairly 
brisk and the sector is a large one, three or four 
hundred shells are wasted upon us often be- 
fore we have been out an hour. 

We have memories of all the good batteries 
from Flanders to the Vosges Mountains. Bat- 
tery after battery, we make their acquaintance 
along the entire sector, wherever we go. Many 
of them, of course, are mobile, so that we never 
lose the sport of searching for them. Only a 
few days ago we located one of this kind which 
came into action in the open by the side of a 
road. First we saw the flashes and then the 
shell-bursts in the same cadence. We tipped up 
and fired at him in bursts of twenty to thirty 
rounds, which is the only way airmen have of 
passing the time of day with their friends, the 
enemy anti-aircraft gunners, who ignore the art 
of camouflage. 

But we can converse with them, after a 
fashion, even though we do not know their 
exact position. It will be long before this chap- 

196 



One Hundred Hours 

ter of my journal is in print. Having given no 
indication of the date of writing, I may say, 
without indiscretion, that we are again on the 
Champagne front. We have a wholesome re- 
spect for one battery here, a respect it has 
justly earned by shooting which is really re- 
markable. We talk of this battery, which is 
east of Rheims and not far distant from Nogent 
PAbbesse, and take professional pride in keep- 
ing its gunners in ignorance of their fine marks- 
manship. We signal them their bad shots — 
which are better than the good ones of most of 
the batteries on the sector — by doing stunts, 
a barrel turn, a loop, two or three turns of a 
vrille. 

As for their good shots, they are often so very 
good that we are forced into acrobacy of a 
wholly individual kind. Our avions have re- 
ceived many scars from their shells. Between 
forty-five hundred and five thousand metres, 
their bursts have been so close under us that 
we have been lifted by the concussions and set 
down violently again at the bottom of the vac- 
uum; and this on a clear day when a chasse 
machine is almost invisible at that height, and 

197 



High Adventure 

despite its speed of two hundred kilometres 
an hour. On a gray day, when we are flying 
between twenty-five hundred and three thou- 
sand metres beneath a film of cloud, they re- 
pay the honor we do them by our acrobatic 
turns. They bracket us, put barrages between 
us and our own lines, give us more trouble than 
all the other batteries on the sector combined. 
For this reason it is all the more humiliating 
to be forced to land with motor trouble, just 
at the moment when they are paying off some 
old scores. This happened to Drew while I 
have been writing up my journal. Coming out 
of a tonneau in answer to three coups from the 
battery, his propeller stopped dead. By plan- 
ing flatly (the wind was dead ahead, and the 
area back of the first lines there is a wide one, 
crossed by many intersecting lines of trenches) 
he got well over them and chose a field as level 
as a billiard table for landing-ground. In the 
very center of it, however, there was one post, 
a small worm-eaten thing, of the color of the 
dead grass around it. He hit it, just as he was 
setting his Spad on the ground, the only post 
in a field acres wide, and it tore a piece of 

198 



One Hundred Hours 

fabric from one of his lower wings. No doubt 
the crack battery has been given credit for dis- 
abling an enemy plane. The honor, such as it 
is, belongs to our aerial godfather, among whose 
lesser vices may be included that of practical 
joking. 

The remnants of the post were immediately 
confiscated for firewood by some poilus who 
were living in a dugout near by. 



IX 



"lonely as a cloud" 



The French attack which has been in prepara- 
tion for the past month is to begin at dawn to- 
morrow. It has been hard, waiting, but it must 
have been a great deal worse for the infantry- 
men who are billeted in all of the surrounding 
villages. They are moving up to-night to the 
first lines, for these are the shock troops who 
are to lead the attack. They are chiefly regi- 
ments of Chasseurs — small men in stature, 
but clean, hard, well-knit — splendid types. 
They talk of the attack confidently. It is an 
inspiration to listen to them. Hundreds of 
them have visited our aerodome during the 
past week, mainly, I think, for a glimpse of 
Whiskey and Soda, our lions, who are known 
to French soldiers from one end of the line to 
the other. Whiskey is almost full-grown, and 
Soda about the size of a wild cat. They have 
the freedom of the camp and run about every- 
where. 

The guns are thundering at a terrific rate, 
200 



Lonely as a Cloud 

the concussions shaking our barracks and 
rattling the dishes on the table. In the mess- 
room the gramophone is playing, "I'm going 
'way back home and have a wonderful time." 
Music at the front is sometimes a doubtful 
blessing. 

We are keyed up, some of us, rather nervous 
in anticipation of to-morrow. Porter is trying 
to give Irving a light from his own cigarette. 
Irving, who does n't know the meaning of 
nerves, asks him who in hell he is waving at. 
Poor old Porter! His usefulness as a combat 
pilot has long past, but he hangs on, doing the 
best he can. He should have been sent to the 
rear months ago. 

The first phase of the battle is over. The 
French have taken eleven thousand prisoners, 
and have driven the enemy from all the hills, 
down to the low ground along the canal. For 
the most part, we have been too high above 
them to see the infantry actions; but knowing 
the plans and the objectives beforehand, we 
have been able to follow, quite closely, the 
progress of the battle. 

It opened on a wet morning with the clouds 
20 1 



High Adventure 

very low. We were to have gone on patrol 
immediately the attack commenced, but this 
was impossible. About nine o'clock the rain 
stopped, and Rodman and Davis were sent out 
to learn weather conditions over the lines. They 
came back with the report that flying was pos- 
sible at two hundred metres. This was too low 
an altitude to serve any useful purpose, and 
the commandant gave us orders to stand by. 

About noon the clouds began to break up, 
and both high and low patrols prepared to leave 
the ground. Drew, Dunham, and I were on 
high patrol, with Lieutenant Barry leading* 
Our orders were to go up through the clouds, 
using them as cover for making surprise attacks 
upon enemy reglage machines. We were also to 
attack any enemy formations sighted within 
three kilometres of their old first lines. The 
clouds soon disappeared and so we climbed to 
forty-five hundred metres and lay in wait for 
combat patrols. 

Barry sighted one and signaled. Before I 
had placed it, he dived, almost full motor, I 
believe, for he dropped like a stone. We went 
down on his tail and saw him attack the top- 

202 



Lonely as a Cloud 

most of three Albatross single-seaters. The 
other two dived at once, far into their own lines. 
Dunham, Drew, and I took long shots at them, 
but they were far outside effective range. The 
topmost German made a feeble effort to ma- 
neuver for position. Barry made a renversement 
with the utmost nicety of judgment and came 
out of it about thirty metres behind and above 
the Albatross. He fired about twenty shots, 
when the German began falling out of control, 
spinning round and round, then diving straight, 
then past the vertical, so that we could see the 
silver under-surface of his wings and tail, spin- 
ning again until we lost sight of him. 1 

Lieutenant Talbott joined us as we were 
taking our height again. He took command of 
the patrol and Barry went off hunting by him- 
self, as he likes best to do. There were planes 
everywhere, of both nationalities. Mounting to 
four thousand metres within our own lines, we 
crossed over again, and at that moment I saw 
a Letord, a three-passenger reglage machine, 
burst into flames and fall. There was no time 

1 This combat was seen from the ground, and Barry's 
victc ry was confirmed before we returned to the field. 

203 



High Adventure 

either to watch or to think of this horrible sight. 
We encountered a patrol of five Albatross planes 
almost on our level. Talbott dived at once. I 
was behind him and picked a German who was 
spiraling either upward or downward, for a few 
seconds I was not sure which. It was upward. 
He was climbing to offer combat. This was 
disconcerting. It always is to a green pilot. 
If your foe is running, you may be sure he is 
at least as badly rattled as you are. If he is a 
single-seater and climbing, you may be equally 
certain that he is not a novice, and that he has 
plenty of sand. Otherwise he would not accept 
battle at a disadvantage in the hope of having 
his inning next. 

I was foolish enough to begin firing while 
still about three hundred metres distant. My 
opponent ungraciously offered the poorest kind 
of a target, getting out of the range of my 
sights by some very skillful maneuvering. I 
did n't want him to think that he had an inex- 
perienced pilot to deal with. Therefore, judg- 
ing my distance very carefully, I did a renver se- 
rvient in the Lieutenant Barry fashion. But it 
was not so well done. Instead of coming out 

204 




VICTORS AND VANQUISHED 



Lonely as a Cloud 

of it above and behind the German, when I 
pulled up in ligne de vol I was under him! 

I don't know exactly what happened then, 
but the next moment I was falling in a vrille 
(spinning nose dive) and heard the well-known 
crackling sound of machine-gun fire. I kept 
on falling in a vrille, thinking this would give 
the German the poorest possible target. 1 

Pulling up in ligne de vol I looked over my 
shoulder again. The German had lost sight of 
me for a moment in the swiftness of his dive, 
but evidently he saw me just before I pulled 
out of the vrille. He was turning up for another 
shot, in exactly the same position in which I 
had last seen him. And he was very close, not 
more than fifty metres distant. 

I believed, of course, that I was lost; and why 
that German did n't bag me remains a mystery. 
Heaven knows I gave him opportunity enough ! 
In the end, by the merciful intervention of 
Chance, our godfather, I escaped. I have said 
that the sky had cleared. But there was one 

1 A mistake which many new pilots make. In a vrille, the 
machine spins pretty nearly on its own axis, and although 
it is turning, a skillful pilot above it can keep it fairly well 
within the line of his sights. 

205 



High Adventure 

strand of cloud left, not very broad, not very- 
long; but a refuge, — oh! what a welcome 
refuge! It was right in my path and I tumbled 
into it, literally, head over heels. I came skid- 
ding out, but pulled up, put on my motor, 
and climbed back at once; and I kept turning 
round and round in it for several minutes. If 
the German had waited, he must have seen me 
raveling it out like a cat tangled in a ball of 
cotton. I thought that he was waiting. I even 
expected him to come nosing into it, in search 
of me. In that case there would have been a 
glorious smash, for there was n't room for two 
of us. I almost hoped that he would try this. 
If I could n't bag a German with my gun, the 
next best thing was to run into him and so be 
gathered to my fathers while he was being 
gathered to his. There was no crash, and tak- 
ing sudden resolution, I dived vertically out of 
the cloud, head over shoulder, expecting to see 
my relentless foe. He was nowhere in sight. 

In that wild tumble, and while chasing my 
tail in the cloud, I lost my bearings. The com- 
pass, which was mounted on a swinging holder, 
had been tilted upside down. It stuck in that 

206 



Lonely as a Cloud 

position. I could not get it loose. I had fallen 
to six hundred metres, so that I could not get a 
large view of the landscape. Under the continu- 
ous bombardment the air was filled with smoke, 
and through it nothing looked familiar. I knew 
the direction of our lines by the position of the 
sun, but I was in a suspicious mood . My motor, 
which I had praised to the heavens to the other 
pilots, had let me down at a critical moment. 
The sun might be ready to play some fantastic 
trick. I had to steer by it, although I was un- 
easy until I came within sight of our observa- 
tion balloons. I identified them as French by 
sailing close to one of them so that I could see 
the tricolor pennant floating out from a cord 
on the bag. 

Then, being safe, I put my old Spad through 
every antic we two had ever done together. 
The observers in the balloons must have 
thought me crazy, a pilot running amuck from 
aerial shell shock. I had discovered a new 
meaning for that "grand and glorious feeling" 
which is so often the subject of Briggs's car- 
toons. 

Looking at my watch I received the same old 
207 



High Adventure 

start of surprise upon learning how much of 
wisdom one may accumulate in a half-hour of 
aerial adventure. I had still an hour and a half 
to get through with before I could go home with 
a clear conscience. Therefore, taking height 
again, I went cautiously, gingerly, watchfully, 
toward the lines. 



X 

"mais oui, mon vieux!" 

The u grand and glorious feeling" is one of the 
finest compensations for this uncertain life in 
the air. One has it every time he turns from the 
lines toward — home ! It comes in richer glow, 
if hazardous work has been done, after mo- 
ments of strain, uncertainty, when the result of 
a combat sways back and forth; and it gushes 
up like a fountain, when, after making a forced 
landing in what appears to be enemy territory, 
you find yourself among friends. 

Late this afternoon we started, four of us, 
with Davis as leader, to make the usual two- 
hour sortie over the lines. No Germans were 
sighted, and after an uneventful half-hour, 
Davis, who is always springing these surprises, 
decided to stalk them in their lairs. The clouds 
were at the right altitude for this, and there 
were gaps in them over which we could hover, 
examining roads, railroads, villages, canton- 
ments. The danger of attack was negligible. 
We could easily escape any large hostile patrol 

209 



High Adventure 

by dodging into the clouds. But the wind was 
unfavorable for such a reconnaissance. It was 
blowing into Germany. We would have it dead 
against us on the journey home. 

We played about for a half-hour, blown by a 
strong wind farther into Germany than we 
knew. We walked down the main street of a 
village where we saw a large crowd of German 
soldiers, spraying bullets among them, then 
climbed into the clouds before a shot could be 
fired at us. Later we nearly attacked a hospi- 
tal, mistaking it for an aviation field. It was 
housed in bessonneau hangars, and had none of 
the marks of a hospital excepting a large red 
cross in the middle of the field. Fortunately 
we saw this before any of us had fired, and 
passed on over it at a low altitude to attack a 
train. There is a good deal of excitement in an 
expedition of this kind, and soldiers themselves 
say that surprise sorties from the air have a 
demoralizing effect upon troops. But as a form 
of sport, there is little to be said for it. It is too 
unfair. For this reason, among others, I was 
glad when Davis turned homeward. 

While coming back I climbed to five thou- 
210 



Mais oui, mon Vieux ! 

sand metres, far above the others, and lagged a 
long way behind them. This was a direct vio- 
lation of patrol discipline, and the result was, 
that while cruising leisurely along, with motor 
throttled down, watching the swift changes of 
light over a wide expanse of cloud, I lost sight 
of the group. Then came the inevitable feeling 
of loneliness, and the swift realization that it 
was growing late and that I was still far within 
enemy country. 

I held a southerly course, estimating, as I 
flew, the velocity of the wind which had carried 
us into Germany, and judging from this esti- 
mate the length of time I should need to reach 
our lines. When satisfied that I had gone far 
enough, I started down. Below the clouds it 
was almost night, so dark that I could not be 
sure of my location. In the distance I saw a 
large building, brilliantly lighted. This was 
evidence enough that I was a good way from 
the lines. Unshielded windows were never to 
be seen near the front. I spiraled slowly down 
over this building, examining, as well as I could, 
the ground behind it, and decided to risk a 
landing. A blind chance and blind luck at- 

211 



High Adventure 

tended it. In broad day, Drew hit the only 
post in a field five hundred metres wide. At 
night, a very dark night, I missed colliding 
with an enormous factory chimney (a matter of 
inches), glided over a line of telegraph wires, 
passed at a few metres' height over a field lit- 
tered with huge piles of sugar beets, and settled, 
comme une fleur, in a little cleared space which 
I could never have judged accurately had I 
known what I was doing. 

Shadowy figures came running toward me. 
Forgetting, in the joy of so fortunate a landing, 
my anxiety of a moment before, I shouted out, 
"Bonsoir, messieurs !" Then I heard some one 
say, "Ich glaube — " losing the rest of it in the 
sound of tramping feet and an undercurrent of 
low, guttural murmurs. In a moment my Spad 
was surrounded by a widening circle of round 
hats, German infantrymen's hats. 

Here was the ignoble end to my career as an 
airman. I was a prisoner, a prisoner because of 
my own folly, because I had dallied along like 
a silly girl, to "look at the pretty clouds." I 
saw in front of me a long captivity embittered 
by this thought. Not only this: my Spad was 

212 



Mais oui, mon Vieux ! 

intact. The German authorities would examine 
it, use it. Some German pilot might fly with it 
over the lines, attack other French machines 
with my gun, my ammunition! 

Not if I could help it! They stood there, 
those soldiers, gaping, muttering among them- 
selves, waiting, I thought, for an officer to tell 
them what to do. I took off my leather gloves, 
then my silk ones under them, and these I 
washed about in the oil under my feet. Then, 
as quietly as possible, I reached for my box of 
matches. 

"Qu'est-ce-que vous faites la? Allez! Vite!" 

A tramping of feet again, and a sea of round 
hats bobbing up and down and vanishing in 
the gloom. Then I heard a cheery "Ca va, 
monsieur? Pas de mal?" By way of answer I 
lighted a match and held it out, torch fashion. 
The light glistened on a round, red face and a 
long French bayonet. Finally I said, "Vous etes 
Francais, monsieur?" in a weak, watery voice. 

"Mais oui, mon vieux! Mais oui !" this rather 
testily. He did n't understand at first that I 
thought myself in Germany. "Do I look like a 
Boche?" 

213 



High Adventure 

Then I explained, and I have never heard a 
Frenchman laugh more heartily. Then he ex- 
plained and I laughed, not so heartily, a great 
deal more foolishly. 

I may not give my location precisely. But I 
shall be disclosing no military secrets in saying 
that I am not in Germany. I am not even in 
the French war-zone. I am closer to Paris than 
I am to the enemy first-line trenches. In a little 
while the sergeant with the round red face and 
the long French bayonet, whose guest I am for 
the night, will join me here. If he were an 
American, to the manner born and bred, and if 
he knew the cartoons of that man Briggs, he 
might greet me in this fashion : — ■ 

"When you have been on patrol a long way 
behind the enemy lines, shooting up towns and 
camps and railway trains like a pack of aerial 
cowboys; when, on your way home, you have 
deliberately disobeyed orders and loafed a long 
way behind the other members of your group 
in order to watch the pretty sunset, and, as a 
punishment for this aesthetic indulgence, have 
been overtaken by darkness and compelled to 
land in strange country, only to have your 

214 



Mais oui, mon Vieux 



machine immediately surrounded by German 
soldiers; then, having taken the desperate re- 
solve that they shall not have possession of 
your old battle-scarred avion as well as of your 
person, when you are about to touch a match 
to it, if the light glistens on a long French bayo- 
net and you learn that the German soldiers 
have been prisoners since the battle of the 
Somme, and have just finished their day's work 
at harvesting beets to be used in making sugar 
for French poilus — Oh, BOY! Ain't it a 
GRAND AND GLORYUS FEELING?" 

To which I would reply in his own memorable 
words, — 

"Mais oui, mon vieux! Mais Oui!" 



XI 

THE CAMOUFLAGED COWS 

Nancy, a moonlight night, and "les sales 
Boches encore." I have been out en the bal- 
cony of this old hotel, a famous tourist resort 
before the war, watching the bombardment 
and listening to the deep throb of the motors of 
German Gothas. They have dropped their 
bombs without doing any serious damage. 
Therefore, I may return in peace to my huge 
bare room, to write, while it is still fresh in 
mind, "The Adventure of the Camouflaged 
Cows." 

For the past ten days I have been attached 
— it is only a temporary transfer — to a 
French escadrille of which Manning, an Ameri- 
can, is a member. The escadrille had just been 
sent to a quiet part of the front for two weeks' 
repos, but the day after my arrival orders came 
to fly to Belfort, for special duty. 

Belfort! On the other side of the Vosges 
Mountains, with the Rhine Valley, the Alps, 
within view, within easy flying distance! And 

216 



The Camouflaged Cows 

for special duty. It is a vague order which may 
mean anything. We discussed its probable 
meaning for us, while we were pricking out our 
course on our maps. 

" Protection of bombardment avions "was An- 
dre's guess. "Night combat" was Raynaud's. 
Every one laughed at this last hazard. "You 
see ? " he said, appealing to me, the newcomer. 
"They think I am big fool. But wait." Then, 
breaking into French, in order to express him- 
self more fluently: "It is coming soon, chasse 
de nuit. It is not at all impossible. One can 
see at night, a moonlight night, very clearly 
from the air. They are black shadows, the 
other avions which you pass, but often, when 
the moonlight strikes their wings, they flash 
like silver. We must have searchlights, of 
course; then, when one sees those shadows, 
those great black Gothas, vite! la lumiere! 
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop! C'estiini!" 

The discussion of the possibility or impossi- 
bility of night combat continued warmly. The 
majority of opinion was unfavorable to it: a 
useless waste of gasoline; the results would 
not pay for the wear and tear upon valuable 

217 



High Adventure 

fighting planes. Raynaud was not to be per- 
suaded. "Wait and see," he said. There was a 
reminiscent thrill in his voice, for he is an old 
night bombarding pilot. He remembered with 
longing, I think, his romantic night voyages, 
the moonlight falling softly on the roofs of 
towns, the rivers like ribbons of silver, the for- 
ests patches of black shadow. "Really, it is 
an adventure, a night bombardment." 

"But how about your objectives?" I asked. 
"At night you can never be sure of hitting them, 
and, well, you know what happens in French 
towns." 

" It is why I asked for my transfer to chasse" 
he told me afterward. "But the Germans, the 
blond beasts! Do they care? Nancy, Belfort, 
Chalons, Epernay, Rheims, Soissons, Paris, — 
all our beautiful towns! I am a fool! We must 
pay them back, the Huns! Let the innocent 
suffer with the guilty!" 

He became a combat pilot because he had 
not the courage of his conviction. 

We started in flights of five machines, follow- 
ing the Marne and the Marne Canal to Bar-le- 
Duc, then across country to Toul, where we 

218 




MOTORS FOR ILLUMINATING THE FIELD OF A 
NIGHT BOMBARDING SQUADRON 




A HANGAR AT THE AERODROME OF THE ESCADRILLE 
LAFAYETTE AFTER A NIGHT BOMBARDMENT 



The Camouflaged Cows 

landed to fill our fuel tanks. Having bestowed 
many favors upon me for a remarkably long 
period, our aerial godfather decided that I had 
been taking my good fortune too much for 
granted. Therefore, he broke my tail skid for 
me as I was making what I thought a beautiful. 
atterrissage. It was late in the afternoon, so the 
others went on without me, the captain giving 
orders that I should join them, weather permit- 
ting, the next day. 

"Follow the Moselle until you lose it in 
the mountains. Then pick up the road which 
leads over the Ballon d'Alsace. You can't miss 
it." 

I did, nevertheless, and as always, when lost, 
through my own fault. I followed the Moselle 
easily enough until it disappeared in small 
branching streams in the heart of the moun- 
tains. Then, being certain of my direction, I 
followed an irregular course, looking down from 
a great height upon scores of little mountain 
villages, untouched by war. After weeks of 
flying over the desolation of more northerly 
sectors of the front, this little indulgence seemed 
to me quite a legitimate one. 

219 



High Adventure 

But my Spad (I was always flying tired old 
avions in those days, the discards of older 
pilots) began to show signs of fatigue. The 
pressure went down. Neither motor nor hand 
pump would function, the engine began to gasp, 
and, although I instantly switched on to my 
reserve tank, it expired with shuddering coughs. 
The propeller, after making a few spins in the 
reverse direction, stopped dead. 

I had been in a most comfortable frame of 
mind all the way, for a long cross-country aerial 
journey, well behind the zone of fire, is a wel- 
come relaxation after combat patrols. It is 
odd how quickly one's attitude toward rugged, 
beautiful country changes, when one is faced 
with the necessity of finding landing-ground 
there. The steep ravines yawn like mouths. 
The peaks of the mountains are teeth — ragged, 
sinister-looking teeth. Being at five thousand 
metres I had ample time in which to make a 
choice — -ample time, too, for wondering if, 
by a miscalculation, I had crossed the trench 
lines, which in that region are hardly visible 
from the air. 

I searched anxiously for a wide valley where 
220 



The Camouflaged Cows 

it would be possible to land in safety. While 
still three thousand metres from the ground I 
found one. Not only a field. There were bes- 
sonneau hangars on it. An aerodrome! A mo- 
ment of joy, — " but German, perhaps ! " — fol- 
lowed by another of anxiety. It was quickly 
relieved by the sight of a French reconnaissance 
plane spiraling down for a landing. I landed, 
too, and found that I was only a ten-minutes' 
flight from my destination. 

With other work to do, I did not finish the 
story of my adventure with the camouflaged 
cows, and I am wondering now why I thought 
it such a corking one. The cows had something 
to do with it. We were returning from Belfort 
to Verdun when I met them. Our special duty 
had been to furnish aerial protection to the 
King of Italy, who was visiting the French lines 
in the Vosges. This done we started northward 
again. Over the highest of the mountains my 
motor pump failed as before. I got well past 
the mountains before the essence in my reserve 
tank gave out. Then I planed as flatly as pos- 
sible, searching for another aviation field. 

221 



High Adventure 

There were none to be found in this region, 
rough, hilly country, much of it covered with 
forests. I chose a miniature sugar-loaf moun- 
tain for landing-ground. It appeared to be free 
from obstacles, and the summit, which was pas- 
ture and ploughed land, seemed wide enough to 
settle on. 

I got the direction of the wind from the 
smoke blowing from the chimneys of a near-by 
village, and turned into it. As I approached, 
the hill loomed more and more steeply in front 
of me. I had to pull up at a climbing angle to 
keep from nosing into the side of it. About this 
time I saw the cows, dozens of them, grazing 
over the whole place. Their natural camouflage 
of browns and whites and reds prevented my 
seeing them earlier. Making spectacular vi- 
rages, I missed collisions by the length of a 
match-stick. At the summit of the hill, my 
wheels touched ground for the first time, and 
I bounded on, going through a three-strand 
wire fence and taking off a post without any 
appreciable decrease in speed. Passing between 
two large apple trees, I took limbs from each 
of them, losing my wings in doing so. My land- 

222 



The Camouflaged Cows 

ing chassis was intact and my Spad went on 
down the reverse slope — 

"Like an embodied joy, whose race is just begun." 

After crashing through a thicket of brush and 
small trees, I came to rest, both in body and in 
mind, against a stone wall. There was nothing 
left of my machine but the seat. Unscathed, I 
looked back along the wreckage-strewn path, 
like a man who has been riding a whirlwind in 
a wicker chair. 

Now, I have never yet made a forced landing 
in strange country without having the mayor of 
the nearest village appear on the scene very 
soon afterward. I am beginning to believe that 
the mayors of all French towns sit on the roofs 
of their houses, field-glasses in hand, searching 
the sky for wayward aviators, and when they 
see one landing, they rush to the spot on foot, 
on horseback, in old-fashioned family phaetons, 
by means of whatever conveyance most likely to 
increase expedition their municipality affords. 

The mayor of V.-sur-I. came on foot, for he 
had not far to go. Indeed, had there been one 
more cow browsing between the apple trees, 

223 



High Adventure 

I should have made a last virage to the left, in 
which case I should have piled up against a 
summer pavilion in the mayor's garden. Like 
all French mayors of my experience, he was a 
courteous, big-hearted gentleman. 

After getting his breath, — he was a fleshy 
man, and had run all the way from his house, — 
he said, " Now, my boy, what can I do for you ? " 

First he placed a guard around the wreckage 
of my machine; then we had tea in the summer 
pavilion, where I explained the reason for my 
sudden visit. While I was telling him the story, 
I noticed that every window of the house, which 
stood at one end of the garden, was crowded 
with children's heads. War orphans, I guessed. 
Either that or the children of a large family of 
sons at the front. He was the kind of man who 
would take them all into his own home. 

Having frightened his cows, — they must 
have given cottage cheese for a week afterward, 
— destroyed his fences, broken his apple trees, 
accepted his hospitality, I had the amazing 
nerve to borrow money from him. I had no 
choice in the matter, for I was a long way from 
Verdun, with only eighty centimes in my pocket. 

224 



The Camouflaged Cows 

Had there been time I would have walked 
rather than ask him for the loan. He granted it 
gladly, and insisted upon giving me double the 
amount which I required. 

I promised to go back some day for a visit. 
First I will do acrobacy over the church steeple, 
and then, if the cows are not in the pasture, I 
am going to land, comme unefleur, as we airmen 
say, on that hill. 



XII 

CAFARD 

It is mid-January, snowing, blowing, the ther- 
mometer below zero. We have done no flying 
for five days. We have read our most recent 
magazines from cover to cover, including the 
advertisements, many of which we find more 
interesting, better written, than the stories. We 
have played our latest phonograph record for 
the five hundred and ninety-eighth time. Now 
we are hugging our one stove, which is no larger 
than a length of good American stove-pipe, in 
the absurd hope of getting a fleeting promise 
of heat. 

Boredom, insufferable boredom. There is no 
American expression — there will be soon, no 
doubt — for this disease which claims so many 
victims from the Channel coast to the borders 
of Switzerland. The British have it without 
giving it a name. They say "Fed up and far 
from home." The more inventive French call 
it "Cafard." 

Our outlook upon life is warped, or, to use a 
226 



Cafard 

more seasonable expression, frozen. We are not 
ourselves. We make sarcastic remarks about 
one another. We hold up for ridicule individual 
peculiarities of individuality. Some one, tiring 
of this form of indoor sports, starts the phono- 
graph again. 

Wind, wind, wind (the crank) 
Kr-r-r-r-r-r-r (the needle on the disk) 
La-dee-dum, dee-doodle, di-dee-day (the orchestral 
introduction) 

Sometimes when I feel sad 
And things look blue, 
I wish the boy I had 
Was one like you — 

"For the love of Pete! Shut off that damn 
silly thing!" 

"I admire your taste, Irving!" 

"Can it!" 

"Well, what will you have, then?" 

"Play that Russian thing, the 'Danse des 
BurTons.' " 

"Don't play anything." 

"Lord! I wish some one would send us some 
new records." 

"Yes, instead of knitted wristers — what?" 

"And mufflers." 

227 



High Adventure 

"Talking about wristers, how many pair do 
you think I've received? Eight!" 

"You try to head 'em off. Does n't do any 
good. They keep coming just the same." 

"It's because they are easy to make. Work- 
ing wristers and mufflers is a method of dodging 
the knitting draft." 

"Well, now, I call that gratitude! You don't 
deserve to have any friends." 

"Is n't it the truth? Have you ever known 
of a soldier or an aviator who wore wristers?" 

" I give mine to my mechanician. He sends 
them home, and his wife unravels the yarn and 
makes sweaters for the youngsters." 

"Think of the waste energy. Harness up the 
wrist-power and you could keep three aircraft 
factories going day and night." 

"Oh, well, if it amuses the women, what's 
the difference?" 

"That's not the way to look at it. They 
ought to be doing something useful." 

"Plenty of them are; don't forget that, old 
son. 

"Anybody got anything to read?" 

"Now, if they would send us more books — " 
228 



Cafard 

"And magazines — " 

"Two weeks ago, Blake, you were wishing 
they would n't send so many." 

"What of it? We were having fine weather 
then." 

"There ought to be some system about send- 
ing parcels to the front. " 

"The Germans have it, they say. Soldier 
wants a book, on engineering, for example, or a 
history, or an anthology of recent poetry. Gets 
it at once through Government channels." 

" Say what you like about the Boches, they 
don't know the meaning of waste energy." 

"But you can't have method and efficiency 
in a democracy." 

"There you go! Same old fallacy!" 

"No fallacy about it! Efficiency and per- 
sonal freedom don't go together. They never 
have and they never will." 

"And what does our personal freedom 
amount to ? When you get down to brass tacks, 
personal freedom is a mighty poor name for it, 
speaking for four fifths of the population." 

"Germany does n't want it, our brand, and 
we can't force it on her." 

229 



High Adventure 

"And without it, she has a mighty good 
chance of winning this war — " 

When the talk begins with the uselessness of 
wristers, shifts from that to democratic in- 
efficiency, and from that to the probability of 
Deutschland ilber Alles, you may be certain of 
the diagnosis. The disease is cafard. 

The sound of a motor-car approaching. Dun- 
ham rushes to the window and then swears, 
remembering our greased-cloth window panes. 

"Go and see who it is, Tiffin, will you? Hope 
it 's the mail orderly." 

Tiffin goes on outpost and reports three 
civilians approaching. 

"Now, who can they be, I wonder?" 

"Newspaper men probably." 

"Good Lord! I hope not." 

"Another American mission." 

"That's my guess, too." 

Rodman is right. It is another American 
mission coming to "study conditions" at the 
front. 

"But unofficially, gentlemen, quite unoffi- 
cially," says Mr. A., its head, a tall, melan- 
choly-looking man, with a deep, bell-like voice. 

230 



Cafard 

Mr. B., the second member of the mission, is in 
direct contrast, a birdlike little man, who twit- 
ters about the room, from group to group. 

"Oh! If you boys only knew how splendid 
you are ! How much we in America — You are 
ouv first representatives at the front, you know. 
You are the vanguard of the millions who — " 
etc. 

Miller looks at me solemnly. His eyes are 
saying, a How long, O Lord, how long!" 

Mr. C, the third member, is a silent man. 
He has keen, deep-set eyes. "There," we say, 
"is the brain of the mission." 

Tea is served very informally. Mr. A. is 
restless. He has something on his mind. Pres- 
ently he turns to Lieutenant Talbott. 

"May I say a few words to your squadron?" 

"Certainly," says Talbott, glancing at us 
uneasily. 

Mr. A. rises, steps behind his chair, clears 
his throat, and looks down the table where ten 
pilots, — the others are taking a constitutional 
in the country, — caught in negligee attire by 
the unexpected visitors, are sitting in attitudes 
of polite attention. 

231 



High Adventure 

"My friends — " the deep, bell-like voice. 
In fancy, I hear a great shifting of chairs, and 
following the melancholy eyes with my own, 
over the heads of my ten fellow pilots, beyond 
the limits of our poor little mess-room, I see a 
long vista of polished shirt fronts, a diminish- 
ing track of snowy linen, shimmering wine- 
glasses, shining silver. 

"My friends, believe me when I say that this 
occasion is one of the proudest and happiest of 
my life. I am standing within sound of the 
guns which for three — ■ long — years have been 
battering at the bulwarks of civilization. I hear 
them, as I utter these words, and I look into the 
faces of a little group of Americans who, day 
after day, and week after week" (increasing 
emphasis) "have been facing those guns for the 
honor and glory of democratic institutions" 
(rising inflection). 

"We in America have heard them, faintly, 
perhaps, yet unmistakably, and now I come to 
tell you, in the words of that glorious old war 
song, 'We are coming, Farther Woodrow, ONE 
HUN-DRED MIL-LION strong!'" 

We listen through to the end, and Lieutenant 
232 




GERMAN AIRMEN'S GRAVE AT HAM 



Cafard 

Talbott, in his official capacity, begins to ap- 
plaud. The rest of us join in timidly, self- 
consciously. I am surprised to find how awk- 
wardly we do it. We have almost forgotten how 
to clap our hands! My sense of the spirit of 
place changes suddenly. I am in America. I 
am my old self there, with different thoughts, 
different emotions. I see everything from my 
old point of view. I am like a man who has for- 
gotten his identity. I do not recover my old, or, 
better, my new one, until our guests have gone. 



On January 10, Captain Hall, after many 
inquiries from his publishers in regard to his 
progress on his story, wrote them as follows : — 

As for the manuscript, I have great hope of 
being given time to finish it before the end of the 
month. ... I am almost certain that I shall 
have enough leisure. I wish that I were as sure 
of the happy inspiration. For oh! man, but this 
is a whale of a story ! I shall never be able to do 
it justice, at least not during such stirring times 
as these. As I said before, however, I'll do my 
best. What I need is at least six weeks of leisure, 
that I might shut myself in a hotel room and live 
with it. This is out of the question, of course. 

233 



High Adventure 



Sometimes in moments when the mood is on, and 
I have no opportunity to write, I'm an awfully 
miserable chap. Then I remember my purpose, 
the reason why I 'm here. I cool off, grit my teeth, 
and think about to-morrow's high patrol. 

Why am I so eager to tell this story? Doubtless 
because it's such a corker. This is bad, for it makes 
me too much in love with easeful life. An aviator 
has no right to make plans beyond to-morrow. 

The weeks passed, and with them came, 
from time to time, batches of manuscript, each 
accompanied by a vivid letter telling quite 
casually of adventures above the clouds. On 
the 16th of April, a brief cable was received: 
"Final ten thousand words posted. Hall." 

Nothing more was heard until the 8th of 
May, when the morning papers contained the 
startling news that Captain Hall was missing 
after a fight with four German planes ten miles 
inside the German lines. The Associated Press 
report described the fight as follows : — 

Captain Hall, with two others, was patrolling 
this morning between St. Mihiel and Pont-a- 
Mousson. When they were over Pagny-sur- 
Moselle, four enemy albatross airplanes, painted 
with black and white stripes, were seen. 

The Americans attacked, Captain Hall singling 

234 



Cafard 

out one of the enemy and driving him downward 
while firing with his machine-gun. The pair made 
a spiral dive from six thousand metres to four 
thousand, when the German suddenly reversed 
his machine and started to rise. In a quick turn, 
he poured a deadly stream of machine-gun bul- 
lets into the bottom of Hall's machine. Captain 
Hall promptly came out of the spiral and made 
a dive for the earth. He was last seen attempting 
to complete this manoeuvre. 

Every effort was made, through both official 
and unofficial channels, to obtain further news, 
but the next information came in the follow- 
ing dispatch from a staff correspondent of the 
International News Service : — 

With the American Army in France, May 21. — 
Captain Norman Hall, the American aviator, 
who was brought down behind the German lines 
on May 7, is reported alive, a prisoner in a Ger- 
man hospital. He was slightly wounded when 
brought down with his machine. 

For military reasons the correspondent is un- 
able to give the source of this information. 

On the same day a long letter reached the 
publishers, written by Captain Hall two days 
after he had given instructions for the sending 
of the cablegram already quoted. 

235 



High Adventure 

I'm an awful liar [he wrote]. This batch of 
manuscript is n't the final one. I have just a little 
more to add, to round off the story. . . . However, 
the last two chapters will be posted to you within 
a week's time, without fail. . . . 

The only reason my story is not completed is 
that some hard-hearted military magnate at avia- 
tion headquarters, to whom I am only a name or 
a number, pulled me out of the Escadrille La- 
fayette — my beloved squadron — and sent me 
as a flight commander to a newly formed Ameri- 
can squadron. It was an awful wrench. 

Two other pilots were sent at the same time to 
the same pursuit group, which makes the exile a lit- 
tle easier to bear. I have been awfully busy ever 
since, t -ying to live up to my new responsibilities. 
This and the German offensive together have 
made the task of finishing my yarn a difficult one. 

Whether he was unable to finish the two 
chapters to his satisfaction, or whether they 
have been lost in transmission, is not known. 
They have not reached the publishers, and this 
record of Captain Hall's experiences as an avia- 
tor must therefore go to the public without the 
ending which he had planned. 

An encouraging message comes from Wash- 
ington headquarters of the American Red Cross 
under date of May 28 : — 

236 



Cafard 

To-day we received further word from the In- 
ternational Red Cross that Captain Hall had 
been reported officially by the German Red Cross 
as a prisoner. We do not yet know his prisoner 
camp address. 

One coincidence in connection with his latest 
letter lays grim emphasis on the swift vicissi- 
tudes of war. Major Raoul Lufbery was at- 
tached to the pursuit group to which Captain 
Hall had been sent, and the latter writes at 
length about some work that they were plan- 
ning to do together. But when the letter 
reached Boston, its writer had been nearly two 
weeks a prisoner in Germany, and Major Luf- 
bery only the day before had given up his life 
in a daring air fight in France. 









I 



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